The Fellowship of the Red Dwarf
by Eileen
Summary: The Fellowship are accidentally transported onto the Red Dwarf. Before they've even worked out where they are, some of them are getting into trouble. NOTE: Smegups have been removed. You can find them on my site.
1. The Arrival (Lock Up the Wicked Strength...

**THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE _RED DWARF_**

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DISCLAIMER: Tolkien characters belong to him; Red Dwarf characters belong to Grant Naylor. Anything else that pops up will hopefully be attributed to the right person.  
NOTE: This takes place during the third season of Red Dwarf.  
  
  
  
  
"Dave," Holly, _Red Dwarf_'s computer, said to Dave Lister, "there's something you need to see down in the cargo decks."  
"Oh, smeg!" Lister exclaimed. "Not another polymorph!"  
"No."  
Lister breathed a sigh of relief. "That's good."  
"Nine of 'em."  
"WHAT?"  
"I'm counting nine separate life readings, down in the cargo decks. Look, I didn't put 'em there! Don't blame me!"  
"Find Rimmer, Kryten and the Cat. We're goin' in."

"What the smeg is going on here?" demanded an irritated Arnold J. Rimmer, who'd been listening to his Hammond Organ CDs when the alert came.  
"We've got unknown life signs in the main cargo bay, Mr.Rimmer."Kryten explained. "Holly's internal scanners picked them up a few minutes ago."  
"It's probably Lister's smegging socks again."Rimmer grumbled, clearly displeased at being taken away from his cherished Hammond music. "Holly's about as useful as an icepick in the Sahara."

Cat was eating, and you did **not** get between Cat and his food, ever.  
"Go 'way, I'm busy."  
"Holly's found something in the cargo decks we need to check out."  
"Fine. Send me a postcard."  
"We don't know if it's dangerous."  
"Then I **really** don't want to go."  
"You're goin'." Lister dragged him along by the arm, despite his protests.  
"What about my lunch?"  
"It'll still be there when we get back!"  
"This better be good. Making me miss my lunch . . ."  
Kryten had already been alerted, and had bazookoids at the ready.

In the cargo bay, the Fellowship of Nine stared in mute disbelief at their surroundings....

"Where are we?"  
"I don't know." They appeared to be in a small square room with metal walls. But it was no metal they had ever seen before.

'Did you hear something?" Sam asked Frodo.

The Hobbit drew his sword and stood ready, in case they were attacked.  
The door in front of them opened . . .

...and from the other side, Lister, Rimmer, Kryten and Cat cautiously approached their nine visitors, bazookoids at the ready. Scanning the Hobbits' swords, Holly said, "Oi, I haven't seen that many dangerous sharp objects in one place since the last time Dave tried to cook."

The other hobbits nudged Frodo forward. "Who are you?" he asked. "What place is this? How did we come here?"  
"You tell me, Mini-Me," Rimmer said, and Lister whacked him with the butt of his bazookoid.

"What the smeg is your problem, Rimmer?"

Kryten decided to do the talking. "Welcome to the mining ship _Red Dwarf_, sirs."  
"It's a dwarf ship, then?" Gimli asked.  
"Actually, it was named after a type of star."  
"Look, a midget!" Cat said, playing with Pippin's hair.  
"Cat, stop that!" Lister admonished him. Under his breath he muttered, "Am I the only sane person here?"

"Define sanity, Lister." Rimmer retorted, also _sotto voce_.

Aragorn stepped forward. "Look, could you tell us how we got here, and where exactly 'here' is? You said this was a ship; what ocean do we sail on?"  
Lister, Rimmer, and Kryten looked at each other helplessly. Cat was on his knees examining the minute fastenings of the Hobbits' clothing (despite their protests).  
Lister finally answered. "See, you're, um . . . you're in space."

"Space?"

"In what space?" Merry asked, confused.  
"You know . . ." Lister made some vague arm gestures. "Outer space. The great blackness between planets. Out among the stars and all that."

"Thank God Lister's not a tour guide." Rimmer said to himself.

"Perhaps Holly could shed further light on the subject," Kryten ventured.  
"Oh, God, we're really getting desperate," Rimmer moaned.  
"We're too far down," Lister said. "We're gonna have to go up to the Drive Room. Follow me."  
The Fellowship followed. Miraculously, they all fit in the lift. They went up to Command Level (it was a long and uncomfortable trip, but they survived), and proceeded to the Drive Room. It was only halfway during Holly's presentation that they noticed they weren't all there.  
"Anyone seen Legolas and Gimli?" Boromir asked.  
Frodo looked around. "Merry and Pippin have gone too."  
"I think I left my stomach on that up-and-down box," Sam groaned, looking decidedly green.  
"We'll split up and search for them," Rimmer decided.

"God help us if they've found the disco." Lister said. "They'll be smashed inside ten minutes flat..."  
"Even sooner if they get hold of your wicked strength lager, sir." Kryten told him.

"Oh, smegging 'ell! Me lager! I left it in--"  
  
"Supply Room 12" said the sign on the door. Judging from the stream of incoherent Elvish drifting through the crack, this was the right place.  
Aragorn opened the door . . .  
. . . and his jaw almost hit the floor.  
It was a well-known fact in Middle Earth that Elves did not get drunk. However, up to this point no Elf had ever met Wicked-Strength Lager. The pile of cans on the floor told the awful truth: Lager 6, Elf 0.  
Dwarves were made of sterner stuff; it had taken Gimli twice as many cans to get that drunk.  
"WHASSAAAAAP!" the drunken duo chorused.  
"Oh my God," Rimmer and Aragorn moaned simultaneously.  
  
Down in the disco, fortunately, it was a bit better. The drinks dispenser had stubbornly refused to serve alcohol to anyone under four feet tall. Not even standing on a chair could fool the mechanical menace, and Merry and Pippin had at last resigned themselves to fruit juice and loud music.

That didn't stop them, however, from finding their way to Parrot's Cafe...

. . . but before they could get to the bar, they found the karaoke machine.  
  
"Is this all of them?" Rimmer asked.   
Frodo did a quick head-count. "No, we're still two short."

"Oh, smeg." Lister groaned.

"Split up again," Aragorn ordered. "You--" he pointed to Rimmer, Cat, and Lister--"get these two situated. The rest of us will go find the other two."  
"If there's a way for them to get into trouble," Gandalf muttered, "they'll find it."

And find it they had, in the form of one of Petersen's old whiskey bottles . . .

Holly decided now would be a good time to update the Ship's Log.  
  
"Um . . . not really sure of the date here . . . oh, who cares? We're three million years into deep space, it's not like they even **have** dates out here, bugger Captain Kirk and them all. Where was I? Oh, yes. Bit of excitement today. Because of some strange time/space/reality shift thingy, we now have nine very strange visitors on board. They must be Lister's relatives, cos four of them are now drunk. The tall, pale, good-looking one and the short hairy one in all the metal are bunked down in one of the crew quarters, and the rest have gone to fetch the two short ones. They were hanging round the karaoke machine earlier, I hope the others can get them away from it in time."  
She started to blink off, then remembered something vital she'd forgotten. "Oh, yes. The tall, dark, handsome one is the only one who looks as though he has any brains. I hope he understands quantum physics, cos I don't. Anymore. Message ends."


	2. All Things Considered, I'd Rather Have a...

**THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE _RED DWARF_**

PART 2 

(A/N: Thanks for being so nice about this silly fic! If it seems a little choppy in places, that's because it was written back-and-forth on a message board between myself and my S.O./writing partner Chris. In this manner we have written an X-Men:Evolution fic ("I'm Dying! Please Bring Ice Cream"—sequel in progress), and this crazy idea just popped into our heads. For those of you disturbed by the drunkenness, it will be over after this chapter, but the worst is yet to come.)

Alas, though, Holly's hopes would be sorely disappointed where Merry and Pippin were concerned. By the time Aragorn found them at Parrot's they were well and truly inebriated . . . and engaging in skutter races to boot. "YAHOO!" Pippin was shouting as he rode around the bar on Perky's back while Merry, mounted on Pinky, tried to catch up with him.

"Get off of there!"

"Huh?" Pippin said,turning to look at a hazy vision of Aragorn. He was distracted just long enough for Merry to take over the lead.

Cat and Rimmer rushed in. "Wow! Look at him go! I'm betting on that one!"  
Rimmer glared at him. "You're not helping."  
At the corner table Bob and Stabhim were hiding behind a chair,hoping they wouldn't get drafted for the next round of skutter races . . . while at the bar, Frodo was sitting with his head in his arms, while Sam tried to console him. (No, they weren't drunk, just miserably upset.)

"Where did we go wrong?" Frodo sighed.

"Nothing's wrong," Sam told him. "Everyone's just . . . having a little difficulty adjusting to a strange place, that's all." At least his stomach had adjusted to the fact that it wasn't going up and down anymore.  
"So they all go and get drunk?"  
"They're not **all** drunk. Not yet, anyway."

"The Shire was never like this." Frodo observed.                        
"The where?" Holly said.

"Where we come from. I miss it."  
"Me too," Sam said with a sigh.  
There was the sound of skutter wheels creaking around a corner. "Here they come again," Holly said.  
Frodo stood up. "Right, that does it. We're going after them."  
"Right, we're--we're WHAT?"  
"Just come with me!" The two Hobbits crossed the bar to where Bob and Stabhim watched the race in (if they hadn't been mechanical) utter terror.   
"You take that one, I'll take this one."

Frodo and Sam tried to stop Merry and Pippin from commandeering Bob and Stabhim...

It ended up being a four-way skutter chase that ended in the supply closet (not on purpose). No one was hurt, but the decision was made that **all** alcohol on the ship would have to be confiscated, and possibly destroyed.   
Meanwhile, upstairs, Lister had put on a bit of Rasta Billy Skank for his charges . . . prompting vehement protests from Rimmer. "Turn that smeg off!" he demanded, wincing.

The tall, pale one (what was his name? Lego Set or something?) leaned an arm on his shoulder. "Our brother has enlightened us to the ways of the Skanky One."  
"Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Lister, a word please?"  
The two of them retreated to the corner of the room.  
"What?"  
"You're supposed to be calming them down, not encouraging them! Good God, if it's not skutter races in the bar, it's loud music in the sleeping quarters--"  
Legowhatsis was starting to undo his trousers.  
"No, no, no, man!" Lister rushed over to help. "Let me show you . . ." He led the inebriated Elf around the corner to the bathroom and presumably enlightened him to the ways of Indoor Plumbing.  
This left Rimmer alone with the Dwarf, who was giving him nasty looks.  
"Don't start with me,laddie." Rimmer warned Gimli bluntly. "I know six different martial arts . . . I could have you out cold on the floor in two seconds flat." Holly rolled her eyes but said nothing.

Rimmer went on in what he thought was a tough manner. "Don't eyeball me, you hairy little git. We didn't invite you lot on this pleasure cruise, and we won't hesitate to throw your assorted posteriors off at the next inhabitable planet--"

The next thing he knew, Gimli had taken his axe and chopped the helmsman's chair in half . . . and looked like he might soon do the same thing to Rimmer himself.

"Was it something I said?" Rimmer asked.  
The only thing that saved Rimmer's life at that moment was the arrival of Aragorn and Boromir, who were doing room-to-room checks.  
"Everything all right in--"  
He stopped in mid-sentence at the sight of the split-in-two chair and Gimli brandishing the axe at a terrified Rimmer.

It took quite some doing to get the axe away from the Dwarf, and get everything calmed down again. Rimmer, who had forgotten that he was a hologram and already dead, ran for his life at the first available opportunity.

"This is Holly,ship's log,date....um....well I don't really know the date 'cause I lost the calendar.Anyway,the little guys are having trouble getting used to the idea of being in space--and speaking of them,one of 'em tried to chop Rimmer in two with an axe...."

Holly was interrupted in her recording by the one in the funny hat, who wandered in and asked her "How long until we reach shore?"

"Um . . . hang on." Holly put the recording on pause and turned to her visitor. "How many times? There **is** no shore. We're in space. Three million years into Deep Space. I'd show you a map, but I gave up trying to map it two million years ago. Just picture a bunch of little twinkly bits against blackness, with a red dot saying "You are here". That's us at the moment."

"Ah."the man in the funny hat said."That explains the lack of fish."

"Right. Now, I think one of the short ones is calling for you, so maybe you should go see to him and let me get on with running things?"  
After the wizard had left, Holly resumed her recording.  
"Really daft, the lot of them, but I guess we're stuck with them till we figure out how they got here and how to get them back wherever it is. It's probably one of those weird time/space/dimension thingies that keep popping up. Have to do something about those. Message ends."  
  



	3. Rimmer's Incredibly Boring Meeting

**THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE _RED DWARF_**

PART 3 

"Please, let me cut his head off." a glowering Gimli urged Legolas. "He was rude to me and threatened to toss me overboard. He has to die." Legolas, of course, was still too hung over to think straight . . .

And then an obnoxiously cheerful Kryten came in with breakfast.  
"Good morning, sirs, I just thought I'd take the liberty of bringing you--"  
Legolas took one look at the food and sprinted for the bathroom.  
"Oh, dear," Kryten said. "I hope he's all right."  
"Elves," Gimli chuckled as he took the tray. "Can't hold their liquor."

"Apparently they can't hold their food either." Kryten observed under his breath (or what would have been his breath if he weren't a mechanoid).

"Well, I'll just leave the tray in case he feels better later on. I'll just pop next door and see to them." Kryten wheeled the cart out of the room and went to the next door down. He tapped on the door.  
It opened slowly.  
"I thought you might like--"  
"FOOD!" Not even a raging hangover can stand between a Hobbit and his food.

Kryten wisely stepped far back from the tray as Merry and Pippin wolfed down everything on it.

The ship's PA system came on.  
"Attention: this is Arnold J. Rimmer, Acting Senior Officer. We will be having a meeting in the Drive Room in ten minutes. There will be refreshments."

"I just hope it's not going to be a Hammond organ recital or a slide show with his stupid telegraph poles." Lister said to Kryten. "Smeg, if I have to look at one more telegraph pole I just might take that axe of Gimli's and smash the projector."

Rimmer had set up three rows of folding chairs for them. He stood before the vidscreen, pointer in hand, in full-on Patton mode.   
"Are we all here, then? Where's What's-his-name? The blonde? He's not still being sick all over everything, is he?"

Silence.  
"Good. Then we'll just..."  
BLEAHHHHHHHH!

That answered that question. The unfortunate Elf had just entered the room, supported (somewhat) by Gimli. They took seats in the back row as the skutters started to clean up the mess.

"Somebody make the floor stop bouncing." Legolas moaned.

"I've asked Holly to prepare some slides for my presentation . . ." Rimmer said.  
"Smeggin' 'ell," Lister muttered under his breath.  
Rimmer glared at him. "If I may continue?"  
The company came to order, except for Aragorn, who was watching Legolas with some concern.  
"Thank you. The history of the Jupiter Mining Corporation begins in 2160, with the advent of faster-than-light ships . . ."  
"I'm hungry," Pippin complained. He and Merry were eyeing the food table with great anticipation.  
"You just had breakfast an hour ago!" Frodo exclaimed.  
"Yeah, and it's nearly time for Second Breakfast."  
Rimmer raised his voice to drown out the little voices from the front row.

"Now then, as I was saying . . ."

It was some time before Rimmer noticed not one of his audience was paying attention.  
He skipped to the good part, about the role semiconductors had played in the JMC's grand history, and heard actual **snoring** from the second row.  
Time for a command decision.  
"Why don't we take a little break? We'll meet back in--" He looked at his watch--"ten minutes? Go on and have some coffee and pastries."  
The Hobbits needed no further invitation. They fell on the food like ravenous wolves.  
"No manners at all." Rimmer shook his head, disgusted. "You **are** planning to leave some of that for the rest of us, aren't you?"

"Smeg, I knew Rimmer would blow this." Lister whispered to Kryten. "What do we do now?"  
"If I may make a suggestion, sir . . . "

"What we need is an expert in the field of quantum mechanics, who can explain the ins-and-outs of time/space distortions in a way these people can understand."  
"But we don't have anybody!" Lister exclaimed. "The whole crew's dead!"  
"So?" Cat said. "So's Rimmer. Incidentally, you gotta get over to the table before those little guys scarf down the last donut."  
"But we tried having another hologram!"*  
"Here's an idea," Holly offered. Anything to forestall more slides. "We ended up with two Rimmers because Rimmer's disc was in Kochanski's box. So where do you think Kochanski's disc was?"  
Lister's jaw dropped as he realized . . . she'd been right there all along.  
"Smeg, you're right! I'm goin' down to the Hologram Generation Suite. Stall them!"  
"How?" Cat demanded.  
"I dunno. Give them more food."  
"There **is** no more food! The little guys ate it all!"  
"Get some out of the dispensin' machines!" Lister ran to the lift, hoping that this would work.

It didn't take long for Lister to find Kochanski's disk in the Holographic Projection Suite; once he found it, he told Holly, "OK, Hol, shut down all non-essential systems. I'm about to activate Krissie's disk."  
"OK, Dave."

"Here, drink this." Aragorn had moved up to sit beside Legolas, and was offering him a small bottle full of dark liquid.  
"What is it?"  
"Something to help you feel better."  
"If you could just make the walls stop going in and out," the Elf said, "that'd be great."  
Aragorn almost smiled. "Just drink it."  
Legolas drank. It tasted awful, but almost as soon as he had swallowed it, he felt his head beginning to clear.  
Boromir took a seat directly behind them. He had a paper cup full of coffee in his hand. "He doesn't know what he's talking about, does he?" He nodded toward Rimmer, who was double-checking the slide placement for the second half of the presentation.

"Not a smegging clue." Lister agreed.

"We've got a surprise for the second half," Lister continued. "Somebody wanna wake up Gandalf?"  
The wizard, snoozing in the next chair with his hat over his face, was the source of the snoring Rimmer had heard earlier.  
"Huh?" Gandalf said when he emerged from his impromptu slumber.

"He's comin' back," Lister said. "It's gonna get better in the second half. You'll see."  
  
Meanwhile, Cat had taken the Hobbits outside to show them how to get all the food they wanted.  
"Fish!" he said.  
There was a whirring noise, and a plate of trout a la creme dropped into the slot.  
"That's amazing!" Sam exclaimed.  
"It just comes out of the wall like that?" asked Merry.   
"Any time you want," said Cat.  
Lister stuck his head out of the Drive Room door. "We're startin' up again. You'd better come in 'ere."  
"We're getting food out of the wall," Pippin told him.

"Yeah, I know, but..."

"It's okay," Merry said. "We can come back. We'll bring the sleeping bags."

"Merry!" Frodo hissed. "We don't belong here! We have to go home!"

"But--the food comes right out of the wall! As much as we want! Whenever we want!"

Lister and Frodo exchanged despairing looks.

"How about when we leave here, we take as much food as you want?" Frodo offered.  
This seemed to satisfy his cousins, so they went inside, with the promise to return as soon as possible to collect more food.

Lister then resumed his journey to the holographic projection suite...

"Okay, Hol, switch 'er on."  
  


Moments later,the holographic reincarnation of Kristine Kochanski popped up in the projection suite."Where is everybody?"she asked Lister."Where's the captain?Petersen?Todhunter?Mr.Ackerman?"Glancing her reflection on a monitor screen,she added,"And where did this 'H' on my head come from?"  
Lister decided it was best to tread light when approaching this particular topic."Well,you see,Kris,we had a bit of an accident...and...."  
"And what?"  
"Well..."

It was a good thing holograms couldn't go into shock.  
"All dead? Three million years? How? Why? I don't--"  
Lister wished he could just hold her, but of course he couldn't since she was a hologram.   
"What's this other problem you want me to solve for you?" she asked.  
"Um, see, there's these people on board, and we don't know where they came from, and we were kinda hopin' you could explain to them where they are. They don't even understand the concept of space!"  
"People?" Krissie asked. "I thought you said the human race was extinct."  
"Well, it is. I mean, now, it is. But they're not from now, are they? They're from somewhere else. Oh, smeg, you'll see. Come on."  
He led her up to the Drive Room and told Kryten, "Get Rimmer off the podium, whatever you do!"  
"That shouldn't be a problem, sir," the mechanoid said. "He's been threatened with at least four different weapons already, and I believe a fifth is standing by."  
"Who are these people?" Kochanski mused.  
"Get ready," Lister said. "This is gonna be a real trip."  
  
  


* Holly figured out how to create a second hologram in "Confidence and Paranoia", and we saw the gruesome results (two Rimmers) in "ME2"


	4. This Is Your Expert? I'm Going Back To S...

**THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE _RED DWARF_**

PART 4 

"What the smeg is wrong with you people?" Rimmer demanded, flinching from the swords being thrust in his direction.

Kryten quickly ushered him off the podium. "I'll take it from here, sir."  
"Gladly." Rimmer backed slowly away from all the weapons pointed in his direction, and then cowered against the far wall. "Are we tetchy or what?" he mumbled under his breath.  
Kryten took up the pointer. Then, not knowing what to do with it, he put it down again. "Since Mr. Rimmer is not an expert in the field of time/space/reality irregularities, we have taken the liberty of bringing on a guest speaker. Someone whom I have been assured is highly intelligent and a gifted speaker. Someone--oh, let's just bring her out. Third Navigation Officer Kristine Kochanski!"  
There was a smattering of polite applause.

Kochanski entered the room . . .

. . . and stopped dead in her tracks.  
She **knew** these people. Knew them? She'd become enmeshed in the intimate details of their lives, when she was twelve and on a rainy summer holiday.  
She let out a squeal of delight.

Rimmer winced and muttered to himself, "We're done for."

"I can't believe it!" Krissie was displaying very unofficerlike behavior as she surveyed her audience. "I've read all the books, and I saw the movies eighty-one times . . ."  
"What **is** she babbling about?" Boromir asked Aragorn, who didn't have a clue.  
". . . and I never thought I'd actually see a **REAL LIVE HOBBIT**!" Her voice hit a pitch that only dogs--and Legolas, who was covering his sensitive Elven ears--could hear. ""I mean, here I am in front of **all** of you, flesh and blood people right in front of my eyes . . ."  
"This is your expert, is it?" Gandalf muttered. "I'm going back to sleep."

"All right," Lister said, "everybody just get a grip, man . . . Now, Kris, if you could get started?"

"Get started? Get started on what?"   
Lister sighed. "As I told you, your job is explaining to these fine gentlemen where they are, how they got here, and most important . . . how they're gonna get home."  
"Why should they leave so soon?" Her misty-eyed gaze had reached the second row, and was lingering there, trying to decide where to stay.

"Because if they don't it could totally smeg up the fabric of the space-time continuum." Kryten told her.

"Oh. Right." She tried to take her mind off the guy with the amazing eyes, and got down to business.

"All right, here's the first thing you need to know . . ." She then proceeded to elaborate on the concept of outer space. The skutters, deathly afraid for their cybernetic lives if the hobbits got hold them again, took advantage of the speech to sneak out.

The Fellowship were amazed.  
Once she got over the drooling fangirlship, Krissie was indeed a compelling speaker. Knowing her audience helped a great deal. She even knew a few words of Elvish. ("Elvish is everywhere," she joked, but unfortunately only Lister got that one.)  
"Are there any questions?" she concluded.

"Just one." Frodo said.

He asked the question that Mr. Rimmer had totally brushed off before.  
"If we came here . . . could something else come through as well?"

"That depends...."

"We'll have to keep a very close eye on things for now, until we can find out more." It was a scary thought, she had to admit.

"Surely Saruman couldn't have followed us here?" Frodo whispered to Gandalf.

"I don't think so, but he could have sent someone. We shall all have to be on our guard."

"Who's Saruman? "Lister asked. "Is he,like,a loan shark or something?"

Rimmer scoffed. "Lister, read the damn book. Or books. I forget, how many were there?"  
Lister looked at him. "Have **you** read the books?"  
"I, um . . . well, I read the first one. Most of it. Rather long and drawn-out, I thought. But I did see the movie."

Kochanski shook her head at both of them. "All right, who wants to join me up here for a little bit?" Her eyes strayed back to the second row, but it was the first row that had their hands up.

"Yes?"  
"Can we have food?"

"Didn't you just eat?"  
"Yes, but we're nearly running into Elevenses, and if this keeps up we'll miss lunch as well."  
Kochanski sighed. "Should we take another break?"

"I'd like to take a break from the whole lot of them permanently." Rimmer muttered under his breath.

Krissie looked at her hologrammatic watch. "All right, then. We'll take a fifteen-minute break, and then do our little audience participation bit." Another glance at the second row, but he was looking away. Their eyes hadn't actually met once during the whole lecture. Damn.  
Oh, Krissie knew it couldn't last--they were quite literally from different worlds, after all--but a brief fling couldn't hurt. Even if they couldn't actually touch each other, there were . . . other things. Long walks, and candlelit dinners . . . no, wait, she didn't eat now either. Well, maybe she could watch him eat.

Meanwhile,down in the Red Dwarf's cargo bay...

. . . absolutely nothing happened.  
Except for a few skutters cowering in the corner, that is.  
  
  
"Ship's log . . . I think it's a Thursday. Anyway, it's the next day, and everybody seems to be settling in all right. Once the skutters cleaned up the mess from last night, that is. Memo to self: instruct food dispensers not to serve alcohol to anyone with pointed ears.  
"Bit of excitement. Lister used the backup feature to recreate Kochanski. Well, Kochanski's hologram, at any rate. She was supposed to fill our guests in on how they got here, but she took one look and just fell apart. I think she's got a crush on one of them, but I can't tell which one.   
"Things are going to get very interesting around here now, that's for sure. Message ends."

(Ooh! Who's Krissie's crush? I left it deliberately vague, but if I get enough votes for someone, he's in. So review already!)


	5. There's Something Else On Board . . . I ...

**THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE _RED DWARF_**

PART 5 

Rimmer and Kryten motioned the hobbits and Gandalf to a holographic display screen.

"Ooh," they chorused.

"Yes,I thought you'd be impressed."Rimmer said smugly.

As the demonstration continued, Krissie kept her eyes on the guy in the second row. _Look back_, she silently urged him.  
And then, finally . . . he did.  
She almost squealed again, but remembering the reaction last time, did her squealing with her eyes.  
She smiled at him.  
He smiled back.  
_Yes!_  
Lister, meanwhile, was watching all this with some amusement. "She's flirtin' with him," he whispered to Kryten. "She's flirtin' with a character in a book!"  
"He was in the movie too, sir," Kryten pointed out.

The skutters, of course, had more immediate concerns--namely, avoiding getting into any more skutter races.

"As you can see," Krissie said, "star maps aren't like ordinary maps, because they have to be three-dimensional. So we get this cool hologram thingie."  
"Thingie? Is that a technical term?" her dream guy asked with a smile.  
"Sort of," she said. "And the best part about this particular star map is, it's touch-responsive. Who wants to touch a hologram?"  
"I thought you couldn't touch holograms," Sam pointed out.  
"You can," Krissie said, her eyes on Mr. Wonderful again, "if you know how. Go on, put your finger right here."

Rimmer eagerly scrutinized Lister's face for some sign of jealousy,but found none.

Down in the cargo decks, the portal opened again . .   
and a hideous creature emerged. "My precious knows not this place, yes." it said. "But it also knows it finds the ring here."

The Hobbit tentatively reached out to the spot Kochanski indicated. As he made contact, the star field shifted and expanded.

"Amazing."

"This is where we are right now, at this moment. If you were to look directly out the front of the ship, this is what you'd see. Incidentally, we have a lovely observation deck that's accessible through the--"  
The lights dimmed for a moment, and a klaxon sounded. "Sorry to interrupt," Holly said, "but something's happening down the cargo decks. I'm getting some very weird readings . . ."  
Everyone jumped up and rushed out of the room. When they arrived at the spot where Holly insisted she'd picked up life signs, they found nothing but some rotted old leaves.  
"They must have blown in through the portal," Aragorn noted. "That means it's still open."  
"No, it's just closed up," Holly said. "After that weird thing happened, the energy spiked up and then vanished."  
"So we can't go home again," Frodo sighed. He sat on a box and felt like crying. Never to see home again? It was worse than a death sentence.  
"We can do it," Kochanski insisted. "Holly, I'll need all the data you have on the portal. Kryten, you're with me."  
"But, Ms. Kochanski, ma'am, I have ironing to do, and there's the Botanical Gardens to keep up . . ."  
At the mention of Botanical Gardens, Sam's ears pricked up. At least there was something around here he could do.  
He found one of the skutters, who started to back away from him in terror.  
"No, it's okay, I don't want to ride you. I wondered if you could show me where the Botanical Gardens are?"  
The skutter nodded its tri-clawed head and led him off down the corridor.  
The power struggle between Kryten and Kochanski continued.  
"You're the only one here who knows anything about quantum phenomena!"  
"Yes, but I'm also the only one who knows where we keep the washing detergent! No one will have clean laundry without me!"  
  


In one of the waste disposal bins, Stabhim continued to hide from the hobbits and was about to try and make his way to the cinema when he noticed a strange creature gibbering to itself in the corridor . . . .

"Look, how 'bout we do this?" Lister suggested. "We'll divide up the cleaning chores so you can work on gettin' the portal open again. Lessee . . . laundry. Any volunteers?"  
  
Stabhim sped off to warn the others that there was something odd in the cargo decks. In his haste, he had forgotten why he had been in the cargo decks in the first place.  
"Gotcha!" Little hands reached out and grasped the skutter by the neck.

HELP! Stabhim tapped out in Morse code to Bob.  
"Time for more skutter rides!" Merry shouted, climbing on the skutter's back.

"Right, I think we've got it all sorted out," Lister said.  
Kryten was sulking. "None of you know how to get creases out properly. Little Miss Bossy has no right to take me away from you!"  
"Hey!" Kochanski exclaimed. "I'm not bossing you around, I'm trying to put the best people on the job."  
"Oh yeah?" said Cat. "Look who you've got doing the laundry! The midget patrol! Say, where are those guys, anyway?"

"I hope it's not anywhere near Parrot's." Lister said.

Suddenly a skutter wheeled by, with a rope around its neck. And attached to the rope was a Hobbit on roller skates.  
Rimmer turned several interesting shades of crimson.

"LET GO OF THAT SMEGGING SKUTTER THIS SECOND!!!"

It was some time before everything was sorted out.

In the meantime, the creature had scuttled into one of the turbolifts and was now wandering about the ship. It came to Peterson's old quarters and glanced experimentally through the doorway. "Perhaps my precious finds the ring here, yes?" It said, rummaging through Peterson's things and generally making a mess of his cabin.  
It was in the midst of its search for the ring that it found a strange bottle inside the icebox. HANSEN'S SUPER WICKED STRENGTH LAGER, the label read. "Hmmm . . . my precious never tastes this before." Cautiously, the creature opened the bottle, sniffed, drank a mouthful of the lager . . . .


	6. Krissie's Date and Other Disasters

**THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE _RED DWARF_**

PART 6 

(A/N: I know I said there wouldn't be any more drunkenness in this story, but Gollum had other plans. Oh, and Kris' crush is revealed in this chapter!)

They had dinner in the Officers' Club that night. The skutters, who would normally have been serving, had locked themselves in a supply closet, so the honors fell to Lister and Cat.  
Kochanski managed to get a seat between her crush and the other good-looking one.

Rimmer once again searched Lister's face for signs of jealousy . . . but Lister, it seemed, was oblivious to the situation.  
How smegging stupid could he be? The woman he'd spent three million years obsessing over was openly flirting with a storybook character, and he didn't mind? How could he not be just a little jealous?  
Rimmer decided to take matters into his own hands.  
"So, Ms. Kochanski, ma'am . . . I understand they're showing _Casablanca_ in the ship's cinema tonight . . ."

"And . . . ?" Kochanski prompted.

"Why don't you take . . . um, What's-His-Name with you? Sort of an evening out."  
"What's-His-Name" looked at Kochanski in confusion. "Out? I thought we were in space."  
"Mr. Rimmer is speaking metaphorically," Kochanski laughed. "What he means is, we should go on a . . . date."  
Still no reaction from Lister. What was the man made of, steel?  
"Then maybe a little late-night drink at Parrot's?" Rimmer suggested.

Lister gave him a skeptical look. "After what happened with Merry and Pippin and their skutter races? I wouldn't recommend it, man. One or two pints there and Krissie's date'll be under the table . . . and Krissie can't drink anything anyway 'cause she's a hologram."  
  
Up in Petersen's quarters,meanwhile, Gollum was discovering that he rather enjoyed the taste of Hansen's Wicked Strength Lager. "My precious likes this very much." the creature said, licking his lips with glee. "We wants to have more of this." He cracked open another bottle . . . and if the crew of the _Red Dwarf_ had thought a drunken hobbit was trouble, well, they hadn't seen anything yet.

"Excuse me," Kochanski said, with a pointed look at Lister, "but I can speak for myself."  
"Sorry," Lister mumbled.  
"Do you hear something?" Kris' would-be date asked.  
Everyone listened very closely, but all they could hear were the sounds of skutters trying to hide.

"I don't hear a smegging thing." Rimmer said.  
"Um,excuse me, chaps," Holly said, "I don't mean to be rude, but the security cameras have picked up something rather odd in Petersen's quarters."  
Rimmer glanced at a display screen and saw a brief flash of movement near the door; he also noticed that the door to Petersen's personal refrigerator had been left open. "What the smeg....?"

"Something definitely followed us," Aragorn said grimly.   
Frodo sighed. "I was afraid of that."  
"Whatever it is, it's after you-know-what."  
"What?" Cat asked.  
Aragorn continued as if he hadn't been interrupted. "So that means that we can't leave you alone. We'll have to work out a rotating system of watches . . ."  
"Why?" Cat asked.  
"Does this mean we don't have to do the laundry?" Merry asked hopefully.

"It means we've got trouble right here in Red Dwarf City." Kryten said, looking at the image of Petersen's quarters.  
Gimli picked up his axe, ready to decapitate the intruder.

"What could have followed you here?" Lister asked Gandalf.

"Many things. Most of which wouldn't hide from us."

"And the ones that would hide?" Kryten said.

"Does anyone else mind that we left in the middle of dinner?" Pippin complained.

"Never mind dinner--we have more important things to think about." Legolas chided him.

"More important than dinner? I should think not!"  
"I've lost it again," Holly announced.  
"Oh, wonderful," said Rimmer. "Should we form search parties? Only take us a week."

"No." Kochanski sighed. "Let's just keep an eye out for it."  
"Agreed." Boromir kept one hand on his sword.

"Is the date still on, then?" Krissie asked.  
"Oh, absolutely," said the last person on Earth Lister would have expected Kochanski to fall for.

"I don't know what she sees in him," he remarked to Rimmer, who scoffed.  
"Must be that big horn of his."  
  
Not a Wicked Strength Lager was safe on Red Dwarf at present. In a way, it was a good thing. If Gollum had been in full possession of his senses at the time, he would have gone straight for the Ring, and things would have gotten very nasty very quickly.  
But he liked the taste of this strange drink, and went looking for more.  
"My precious feels good." he said, staggering up to the doors of Parrot's. "We wants more wicked strength lager, yes. Maybe we finds some here?" Sure enough, a quick search behind the bar yielded at least three kegs of said lager packed in stasis all bearing the cautionary label DO NOT LET PETERSEN TOUCH OR SEE.

Meanwhile, Cat was taking matters into his own hands.  
"We gotta find you something to wear, bud!"

"Oh God." Kochanski groaned.

Cat started with his own wardrobe, but the guy was a bit too broad-shouldered to fit into any of his suits. So they tried Ship's Stores.  
The first outfit was a green pullover and cargo pants. "Too casual," Cat pronounced it.  
Next, gray dress slacks and a white shirt. "Too formal."  
A blue rugby shirt and jeans. "Uh . . . don't take this the wrong way, bud, but horizontal stripes make you look fat."  
They thought they had found the perfect outfit--blue button-down shirt, jeans, and black boots--until Cat declared it needed one more little touch. A black cowboy hat.

"Perfect!"

Kochanski took one look and burst out laughing.  
"Hey, hey, hey, you're not supposed to see your date before he picks you up!" Cat chided her, ushering her out of the room. "Go back to your room and prepare to be dazzled by his brilliance!"  
Lister came in. "Are you almost done with--oh my God."  
"What's wrong?" Cat asked. "I think it's a good look for him! Kind of a Renaissance Marlboro Man kind of thing."

Lister emphatically shook his head. "Cat, Cat, Cat . . . what the smeg are you thinking?"

"Too late now," Cat pointed out. "He'll be late for his date! Besides, I promised Elfy I'd do him next!"  
"Elfy?"  
"Yeah, his real name was too long. I'm thinking paisley . . ."  
  
Krissie went back to her room to prepare herself. _It's only a date. You've been on hundreds of dates. Okay, not hundreds, but you know what I mean. Just an ordinary date, with a sexy, buff, warrior dude . . . who dies in the second book._**  
She looked up into her mirror and gave herself a stern look. _But we won't think about that, will we? And we certainly won't mention it at all. That could change the whole fabric of history. If any of them finds out what happens to them . . ._  
There was a tap at her door.

Back at Parrot's, meanwhile, Gollum was having the time of his life leapfrogging from table to table and getting tanked out of his skull on Hansen's Wicked Strength Lager. Had any of the hobbits come across him at that moment, they could have captured him with the greatest of ease.  
"My precious gets down with Rasta Billy Skank!" he shouted as he pressed several buttons on the club jukebox; within seconds, the entire cafe was shaking as if an earthquake had hit. And Gollum added to the cacophony by singing along to the Skanky One's lyrics. Until you've seen a Stoor*** gyrating to thundering guitar music, singing at the top of its lungs in a state of nearly total inebriation, you cannot imagine how truly bizarre the universe can get.  
  


Krissie opened her door. Boromir was standing there in the cowboy outfit, complete with hat. She was trying hard not to laugh.   
"Are we ready, then?"

"I hope so..."

The ship's cinema was rather small, more of a screening room really. There was a dispenser on the far wall for popcorn and drinks and such.  
Krissie and Boromir took their seats in the fourth row. Close to the action, but not so close that they'd have to crane their necks to see.  
"So what happens now?" Boromir asked.  
"The lights will go down," Kochanski told him, "and the film will start."  
"And it's just images on that big white thing?"  
"Yes, they're nothing that can jump out and hurt you."  
"Oh. Good." He settled back into the seat, and sipped his drink. Kris had got him popcorn and Milk Duds to go with it. She was getting hungry just looking at it. Being a hologram meant that she didn't have to eat, but it just wouldn't be a movie without popcorn.  
The skutters discreetly took up a seat in the back...

The door at the top of the aisle opened just as the lights went down. Someone came in, and sat down directly opposite Boromir and Kris.

"I don't believe this...." Kochanski groaned.

Lister took no notice of them. He just sat and watched the film.

"Is there a problem?" Boromir asked her.

"Excuse me," she said, sliding out into the aisle. "I'll be right back."   
She crossed over and sat next to Lister. "What are you doing here?"  
He looked up. "Watching _Casablanca_, what else?"  
"You're not here to spy on us?"  
"No. Why would I be?"

"Because you're a jealous prat?"

"I am not jealous!" Lister protested. "Why would I be jealous?"  
Krissie was spared having to answer that obvious question by the arrival of Cat and Gimli, who'd been sent to look for the mysterious visitor whose badly off-key voice had been echoing off the walls of Parrot's just a few minutes earlier.  
  
Said visitor was now barreling through Red Dwarf's corridors on Lister's space bike, giggling insanely (nothing new for him)  as he whipped around corners with reckless abandon."Makes way for my precious!" he yelled, nearly flattening Stabhim.

"What's up?" Lister asked.  
"Unfortunately, very little. Our mysterious visitor is very good at hiding himself."  
"How d'you know it's a he, then?"  
Gimli held up a beer-stained copy of one of Lister's Playmates.  
"Oh."

"I'm tellin' you, bud," Cat said, "he's sucked down enough lager to get an **elephant** drunk!"

"Ssh!" Kochanski whispered.  
Cat looked over his shoulder. "Where's Elfy? I thought he was right behind us!"

"Yes,where is he?" Gimli wondered.

The door opened . . . and a terrified Stabhim whizzed through it, followed by Rimmer. "Lister,we'd better break out the bazookoids--our phantom visitor's struck again."

"We're tryin' to watch the film!" Lister protested.  
"Oh, for heaven's sake," said Rimmer, "she gets on the damn plane and leaves him. There. Happy? Now let's go."  
He didn't see four tiny, furry forms sneak past him, in search of free popcorn.

Elsewhere,Gollum was doing wheelies on Lister's space bike in the hallway near Mr.Ackerman's* old quarters."My precious likes this as much as lager."he said with delight.

"Can we go yet?" Rimmer turned, but ran straight into . . . Elfy.  
If the Renaissance Marlboro Man was funny, Legolas' new outfit was downright hilarious. He wore a blue paisley shirt, a lavender vest (fringed, of course), green bell bottoms, and white high-heeled boots. His bow was slung over one shoulder, making him look like some sort of hippie Robin Hood.

"Oh,smeg." Lister sighed.

Cat shrugged. "What? It's a good look for him!"  
Just then Aragorn had the misfortune to enter, and Cat pounced on his next victim. "I got the perfect thing picked out for you, bud!"  
"I don't think so!"

Cat jerked a thumb at Aragorn and said to Lister and Rimmer, "What's his problem?"

Meanwhile, the Hobbits were forced to sit in the front row, as it was the only place they could see.

"What's going on?" Sam asked Frodo.

"Someone's stealing my popcorn, that's what." He shot a pointed glance over to his left.

"I beg your pardon?"an indignant Merry demanded.

"You took all my buttered pieces!"  
"I did not!"   
Between the popcorn argument and the confusion topside, no one noticed the sound of a space bike pulling up to the cinema doors.   
  
Gollum climbed down from the bike and staggered into the theater.

He heard voices and hit the floor, crawling through the back row until he got to the far side. Then he made his way down front in search of spilled popcorn.

"Mmmm . . . good for my precious."

Kochanski had had just about enough of everyone spying on her date. "Holly, pause the film," she said.  
The action on the screen froze.  
"Put me on PA."  
"Go ahead," Holly said.  
"Right!" Kochanski announced. "Is there anyone else who would like to come watch us watching a film? Come on, the rest of you may as well get down here. Not that there's anything to see."

"Was it something I said?" Lister asked Gandalf.

Kryten came in, obviously unhappy. "First you take me away from my laundry duties to run your calculations, then you call me away from _that_ to come and interrupt your date. Women!" He took a seat in the back row and sulked.

"I think she was being sarcastic when she made that call." Rimmer said, rolling his eyes.For a Series 4000 mechanoid, Kryten could be such a stupid git.

"Can we start the film again?" Lister asked. "It's just getting to the good part."

"Hang on a bit, chaps." Holly said. "I've got the intruder's life signs again, and they're coming from somewhere inside the theater . . ."

"Something just crawled across my foot!" Merry exclaimed, jumping up.  
"That was my popcorn, you idiot!" said Pippin.

"Where is it now, Holly?" Kochanski asked.

"I've lost it again."  
"Oh, smegging brilliant," Rimmer remarked.  
Holly looked put out. "It's hard to get a lock on something when I don't know what it is! You think you can do any better, you're welcome to try."

Unbeknowst to them, Gollum was sprawled underneath one of the back seat, clutching his head and moaning in pain. "Uhhhhhhhggh . . . my precious feels horrible. We feels like our head is exploding."

"Are we gonna watch the rest of the film?" Lister asked.  
"What about my popcorn?" Pippin demanded.

None of them noticed a badly hung-over Gollum sleeping it off in one corner.  
  
After the film was over (mercifully uninterrupted again by anyone), Boromir walked Kochanski back to her quarters.  
"I must say," she told him, "this is the most . . . memorable date I've ever had."  
"I don't think I've ever had one," he said, "so you've got me there."  
"We must do this again sometime."  
"Preferably without the hangers-on."  
Kochanski nodded and made a mental note to have serious words with Lister.  
"Well . . ." They looked at each other a long moment.  
Krissie realized that were this a normal date, this would be the point where they kissed good night. However, since she was a hologram, that wasn't exactly possible.  
"Good night," she said, and slipped inside quickly.  
Boromir walked back to the room he shared with Aragorn, humming "As Time Goes By" without even realizing it.  
  


**Yes, I know it's at the end of the first movie, but i n the books it's the beginning of the second book.

 ***Gollum's species according to the LOTR books

*Red Dwarf's first officer;he appeared in season 8.


	7. Finally, A Bit of Excitement (No, Rimmer...

**THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE _RED DWARF_**

PART 7 

(Additional disclaimer: in addition to not owning RD or LOTR, I also do not own Andrea Bocelli or _Enterprise_.)

"Don't start, Rimmer." Lister warned his holographic bunkmate.

Rimmer looked up from his golf program. "I didn't say a word."  
"You didn't need to. I know what you're thinkin'."   
"Yes, I'm thinking 'I wish Lister would go away and leave me alone.'"  
"You know what golf needs?" Lister asked after a moment's pause.  
Rimmer rolled his eyes. "Oh, do enlighten me."  
"Cheerleaders."  
"Cheerleaders? In golf?"  
"Well, obviously not when someone's makin' a shot, but when they sink a really good one, they can all jump up and down and yell."  
"And you think this will improve golf?"  
"Oh, yeah. All the really popular sports have cheerleaders."  
"What about baseball? No cheerleaders in that."  
"Well, they have mascots. That's almost as good."  
  
Next door, the Hobbits were apparently doing a jigsaw puzzle by committee.

Kryten did his best to keep things civil, but what had started as an offer of "help" had turned into an argument that ended when Merry accidentally knocked the puzzle to the floor.

"All in all, I'd rather be fighting trolls." Frodo groaned. He picked up what was left of the puzzle and started out the door.  
Alone.

Several hours later Gollum awoke from his lager-induced slumber . . .

He couldn't remember anything about the previous evening, other than he'd had a lot of fun. Then he remembered the most important thing.  
"The ring!"  
  
Frodo only got about ten feet before being hit with a flying tackle. The puzzle dropped again and scattered all the way up the corridor.  
"Where d'you think you're going?" Pippin demanded. "You're not supposed to go off by yourself!"

"I'm sick of the arguing!"

"We're just trying to help!"  
"I can do without your help, thank you!" He bent over to pick up the puzzle pieces and was attacked again.  
"Don't you go anywhere without us!" Merry shouted in his ear.

"What are you talking about? I can take care of myself!"

Kryten came running after them. "Is anyone hurt?" he asked. Then he tripped on a stray piece of puzzle and fell on top of them.  
It was at this moment that Rimmer came along, saw them lying in a tangled heap, and decided not to ask.

"Kindly get off me now." Frodo grumbled at Merry.

"We just wanted to help," the younger Hobbit sulked.

"You couldn't have found some other way?!"

"Why are you being such a grouch all of a sudden?"

"Boys, boys!" Kryten pleaded.

"I am not being a grouch!" Frodo protested.  
"Yes you are! Is it because of--?" Merry nodded towards the ring's hiding place. None of them had mentioned it to their hosts, for fear of endangering them.  
"I just want a quiet place to do my puzzle in peace!"  
"But you can't be alone!"

"Why not?"

"You know why not," said a voice behind them.

"Well,I'm sorry, Aragorn, but the arguing was driving me mad." Frodo told the ranger bluntly.

"I'm sorry this is so hard on you, but we can't let anything happen to you, especially not now." Their visitor was still unidentified--Holly hadn't even been able to pick up more than a glimpse on the security cameras.

"Where _is_ that little bugger?" she grumbled to herself.

Whoever or whatever he was, he appeared to be very good at hiding. But they'd find him/her/it, sooneror later.  
  
Meanwhile, something very strange was going on in the Officers' Lounge . . .namely, Gollum looking for the ring.

Stabhim came in to clean up, got a look at the intruder who was tearing the place apart, and scooted off to get help.  
Unfortunately . . . all he got was ridden again.

Merry rode him up and down one corridor after another, ending up in the Botanical Gardens, where Sam was working on the ornamental hedges.

"Look out!"

Sam pulled Merry off the skutter, which veered to a stop just inches from the hedges.  
"What are you doing? You're not supposed to be riding those things!"

"Says who?"

"Says everyone! Why can't you stay out of trouble for once?"  
"I wasn't getting into trouble!"  
"I think the skutter might see it differently."  
"No way! He loves going for rides! Don't you, skutter?"  
The skutter emphatically shook its mechanical head.

"If you do this again I'll have you locked up," Sam threatened him.

Meanwhile, Gollum found his way into the ventilation system, and was prowling around the ship.  
As it was a big ship, he got very lost very quickly.

"My precious knows not where we is."

Frodo, meanwhile, was attempting to finish his puzzle in Todhunter's old quarters when Holly, who had volunteered to keep an eye on him, picked up a distress signal from outside the ship.

"What is it, Hol?" Lister asked as soon as he got the news.

"Automated distress signal from a vessel just off our port bow," Holly said.  
"Life signs?"  
"None. It's an SCS** registry number . . . I'm running it now . . ."  
Kochanski joined them. Half her hair had been braided, with blue ribbons at the ends. Lister looked at her curiously.  
"What?" she demanded. "I just wanted to do something nice with my hair for once!"  
"You never braided your hair for me!"  
"You never asked me to!"  
"Both of you shut the smeg up!" Rimmer hissed. "Now then, Holly, what have got on that distress signal?"

"Hmmm . . . it's coming in now . . . I'll put it onscreen."  
Just as she was about to, there was a scream from the next room.  
"Okay, okay!" Cat said. "I was just trying to help! Sheesh! All I said was that piece goes--"  
"Cat!" Lister exclaimed. "We're gettin' a distress signal from another ship!"  
"Maybe they can help Short Stuff with his puzzle."

Lister rolled his eyes . . .

A grainy image of a ship's interior appeared on the monitor.  
"This is the SCS _Andrea Bocelli_ requesting emergency assistance. We are having mechanical failure . . ." There was a burst of static that drowned out the next few words. " . . . short on supplies. If . . . Corps ships in the area, please respond . . ."  
"So it's not aliens then?" said Rimmer.

"_ SCS Andrea Bocelli_?Never heard of that one, Hol." Lister said.

"Wasn't he a Renaissance painter?" Rimmer asked.  
Kochanski sighed in annoyance. "Honestly, Rimmer, you're useless, aren't you? He wasn't a painter, he was a singer! One of the finest voices of the 21st century. I have all his recordings myself."  
"Why would anyone name a ship after a bloody singer?"  
"Beats me," said Lister. "Maybe they're fans."  
"Round everyone up," Kochanski ordered. "Everyone. We're forming a rescue party."  
"But Holly said there were no life signs."  
She gave him a pointed look. "You'd trust a computer who spent two million years making silly faces into the mirror just to pass the time?"  
"Good point," Lister had to admit.  
"Anyway, if there are no survivors, we can salvage what we can from them and then destroy it."  
"Destroy it?" Rimmer asked.  
"So no one else can get hold of it. There's some nasty beings out there--GELFs, simulants . . . who knows what else. We don't want them having access to our technology."  
Rimmer looked down and to his right, as if looking for something. Lister asked him about it.  
"Oh, I'm just looking for the UPN logo. I feel like I've wandered into an episode of _Enterprise_ by accident. This isn't the sort of thing we do."  
"Well, it is now," Kochanski told them. "General meeting, Captain's office, ten minutes. Spread the word."

  
**SCS--Space Corps Service


	8. I Don't Want To Be On His Team!

**THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE _RED DWARF_**

PART 8 

(A/N: I would like to thank all my wonderful reviewers individually now. If you want to see your name here, you know what to do.

MissCam: yes, it is weird, and about to get weirder.

Wildcardgal: more silliness on the way!

Queen of the Damned: well, some crossovers work better than others, and some you have to make work.

Platypus II: thanks for the praise and we will keep it up!

Chicory Tee: :)

Leap of fate: I'm writing, I'm writing! More should be up within the next 4-5 days, so stay tuned!

TigerBabe: well, as you now know, you were right. Can't beat logic, can we? More fluffiness next chapter!

Linz: we'll do our best to put more Pippin in future chapters.

Iz: as we've learned, lager is a dangerous thing. 

Mamfa: we'll certainly keep going as long as you keep reading!

Asteria: oh, come on, Leggy gets all the girls! We'll have him do something heroic, though.

Melboriel: more laughs to come! 

Galen Morlome: there's one way to fix that. Get out there and spread the word!

Right, now on with the show!)

"And who the smeg appointed you Captain?" Rimmer demanded peevishly.

"I'm the highest-ranking officer here. That puts me in charge, Mr. **Second Technician** Rimmer."  
She did have a point. Rimmer seethed silently and plotted to get rid of her once and for all.  
  
The entire company assembled in the Captain's Office at the appointed time, though they weren't all happy about it.

Kryten was particularly annoyed with her, grumbling under his breath: "Bossy old trout!"

"Here is our plan," Kochanski announced to the assembled crew. "We split into two teams--one will search for possible survivors, the other will salvage what supplies and equipment we can find."  
"Who's on what team?" Lister asked.

"Dave, you and Kryten are with me . . ."

Kryten harrumphed and looked annoyed, but said nothing.  
Kochanski had a blackboard on an easel, with "RESCUE" on one side and "SALVAGE" on the other. She wrote her name, Lister's, and Kryten's under "RESCUE." "Who else have we got?"

"Rimmer and Cat." 

"I think we should be on the third team," Rimmer said. "The 'stay behind in case it's a trap and they board us while we're away' team. Cat, me, and . . . the chap with the big sword."

Kochanski's expression immediately signalled that wasn't an option.

"I'll go on the Salvage team!" Merry announced. "I'm good at finding things."  
"Except lager," Pippin muttered under his breath. The disappearance of the ship's alcohol had been hard on him. He was looking forward to a pint or two, if they ever found one.

On board the _Andrea Bocelli_,meanwhile . . . the creatures watched and waited. Waited for food to come to them.  
The fake-distress-call ploy had worked like a charm. This red one was the fifth such vessel to fall for it, and the occupants of the previous four had made for fine feasts. These ones would prove no different, surely.

Inside _Red Dwarf_'s ventilator systems,Gollum continued to hunt for the ring. He could sense it nearby, but could never manage to come out where it was. The vents were a maze of tunnels, all leading to the wrong places.

"My precious does not like this,yes." he complained. "We hates it."

There was nothing he could do, though, but press on, and hope he found the ring soon.  
  
In the Captain's Office, the final plan had been laid. The Rescue team consisted of: Kochanski, Lister, Kryten, Aragorn (whom Frodo had suggested for his healing abilities, in case there were injured survivors), Gandalf, and Boromir (big surprise there; if Krissie hadn't been a hologram, everyone would have suspected her of getting him onto her team so they could have a quick snog in a corner somewhere). The Salvage team, meanwhile, was comprised of Rimmer, Cat, the Hobbits, Gimli, and Legolas.  
"We'll take Starbug," Kochanski insisted, "and split up when we get there, keeping radio contact. Two people, and two people only, on each team will carry a bazookoid."

"Smegging Mary Sue." Rimmer muttered at her behind her back.

Most of the Fellowship preferred to bring their own weapons, so the bazookoid shortage wasn't a problem.  
They boarded Starbug and waited while Kryten went through all the preflight checks. To pass the time, they listened to Rasta Billy Skank's Grammy-winning CD, "Headbangin' in Honolulu".  
For 3.8 seconds.  
"What the smeg is that noise?" Rimmer demanded.

"It's not noise." Legolas retorted. "It is one of the Skanky One's greatest songs."

"Says you, Pointy Ears."  
The argument nearly developed into a full-fledged brawl. Fortunately,Lister was there to keep them from tearing into each other.

"Let's save our energy for the people in that ship over there," he said.  
  
Kochanski was in the nav seat when she felt someone come up behind her. She turned and saw Pippin in the seat behind. "Hi," she said.  
"Um . . . hi. Your name's Kristine, right?"  
"That's right."  
"'S pretty."  
"Well, thank you." He was really quite cute and charming when he wasn't racing skutters.  
He just sat there, looking at her, for so long that she finally asked, "Was there something else?"  
"Um . . .yes, actually." He struggled for a moment, then spit it out. "Why're we doing this?"  
"Doing what?"  
"This rescue thingy."  
She launched into the spiel from the Space Corps manual. "It is our duty as Space Corps personnel to render aid and assistance to . . ." She broke off as she realized his eyes were glazing over. "It's only right that we help those people," she offered at last. "They may still be alive."  
"If they're not, can we go home?"  
Kochanski smiled at that. "We'll take a quick look around first and see if there's anything we can use ourselves."  
"Like lager?" Pippin asked hopefully.  
Krissie laughed. She hadn't been around for the big drinking binge, but she had heard stories. "Probably not. Now why don't you go back with the others and have a seat? We're nearly there."

"Curse you, Frank Hollister, for bringing that snooty cow on board." Rimmer grumbled threateningly under his breath.

"I can't believe we're doing this," Sam said.  
Frodo, who was reading a book (he had long since given up on the puzzle after even Holly tried to throw her two cents in), looked up and said, "What?"

"Going into space."

"It doesn't look all that interesting to me," Frodo said. "Just black with twinkly bits."  
"Yes, but we're actually between the twinkly bits! Isn't that amazing?"  
"What's amazing is that nobody's found the lager in two days."  
"It's a big ship. We'll find it."  
"We?" Frodo raised an eyebrow.  
"Well, I could use a pint or two, once in a while, in the evenings. I wouldn't go crazy with it or anything . . ."  
"We're preparing for docking," Kochanski announced. "Please strap yourselves in and hang on."

"Don't even think about it." Lister said when he saw Rimmer trying to sneak up to the escape pod.

"What? I was just, erm, checking that it's still here."

"Right, Rimmer. Get back in your seat."

Docking was a complicated procedure, but Kryten being the professional that he was, they managed it without a hitch.  
Almost.  
Rimmer reached for the magazine that had hit him in the back of the head. "Good Things in Small Packages, eh?" Thinking it was a gift catalogue, he opened it . . .  
It wasn't a gift catalogue. Not unless you were buying gifts for someone with a leather fixation and very little clothing budget.  
"Right, whose is this?" he demanded.

"Smeg, it's not mine." Lister said.

The Hobbits attempted to look innocent, but failed miserably.

"Well?" Rimmer demanded.

"I borrowed it from Dave," said Merry.  
"No smeggin' way!" Lister exclaimed in outrage. "I'm not into that!"

"Well, where did it come from, then?"  
Lister finally admitted, "I found it in a locker and gave it to them. I didn't know it was **that** explicit!"  
Rimmer rolled up the offensive publication. "I'll just hang on to this, then."

"Pipe down, everyone." Kochanski instructed. "We're on final approach."

Those who were not already strapped into their seats did so now. It was an exciting moment . . . for almost everyone.

Repeating his earlier assessment of Kochanski, Kryten muttered, "Bossy old trout."

"Kryten!" Kris exclaimed. "Just get us over there, and save the comments till we're on board!"  
Kryten rolled his eyes. "Yes, ma'am."  
  
Things were going a bit better aboard Red Dwarf. Gollum had finally found his way out of the maze of vents, but as he slithered out into the main corridor, he realized he was on an empty ship.

"My precious wonders where everyone went." he said,shuffling into the drive room. "We not finds anyone at all."

Even the giant head on the wall that had been watching him was gone away.  
And the ring . . .  
"The ring! The ring is gone, my precious!" Gollum lamented. He curled himself into a corner and cried.  
  
"Almost there now," Kochanski announced.   
Holly had provided a view on the cargo-bay monitor, and the Fellowship eagerly watched the new ship grow larger and larger.

The creatures, meanwhile, watched and waited for their meal to arrive.  
  
They were mutant life-forms, results of a genetic experiment gone hideously wrong. For millions of years, they'd thrived on devouring other beings; for the past several centuries they'd lived on Gelfs, humans being scarce. But when they found an entire shipload of human beings, they'd wasted no time setting a trap . . . 

It would have interested the party very much to know that these creatures were descended from Orcs. But they would find that out soon enough.  
  
"Holly," Kochanski said, "a little music, please."  
The Rasta Billy tape picked up where it had left off.  
"Not **that** music! Something . . . spacey."  
Rasta Billy was replaced by the theme from 2001.  
"Much better. Are you all okay back there?"

"Yeah." Lister said. "I sure could go for a curry, though."

"I think I'm gonna be siiiiiiick," Sam moaned.  
Cat reluctantly handed him a barf bag. "Just don't get it on this suit, OK? This is my third-favorite suit of all time! I let Elfy borrow Number Two."  
"Elfy" tried very hard to disappear into the vinyl seat back, but it clashed with the borrowed suit.

Rimmer suddenly noticed that Frodo looked quite agitated. "Are you all right?" he asked. "You're not going to be sick too, are you?"

Frodo emphatically shook his head. "There's something evil on that ship. I can feel it."

"Well, it's a good thing we're armed, then, isn't it?" Rimmer nodded at the bazookoids resting up against the wall. "Evil can't stand up to good old-fashioned firepower."

"This from somebody who runs from his own shadow." Lister said to Gimli.

"Aye," the Dwarf said, raising his axe. "Anything evil on that ship has to go through us first. I'm in the mood for a battle."

So, incidentally, were the creatures aboard the _Andrea Bocelli _. . . .

Finally, after what seemed like ice ages, Starbug was docked, and Kochanski opened the airlock.  
"Now remember, keep in touch every five minutes. Stay alert; this is an alien environment."  
"I thought it was an Earth ship," Lister said.  
"Well, it was," she replied, "once. Now there could be anything living in here."  
At the first main corridor, they split up.  
"Good luck," Kochanski said, saluting. Only Rimmer returned her salute, with one of his own, which made him look like he was swatting flies.  
"Right," he said, when Kochanski's group was out of sight. "Let's move out."


	9. No Life Signs, Hol? What'd You Call All ...

**THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE _RED DWARF_**

PART 8 

Back on _Red Dwarf_, Gollum was cowering in what had once been Todhunter's cabin.

Gollum, looking for food, had found Todhunter's cache of expensive imported chocolates.  
Unfortunately, they were very **old** expensive imported chocolates.

"My precious feels very sick." he groaned.

He lay down on the floor and moaned. Had he only known that a food dispenser was right outside the door . . .  
  
"Shouldn't we be going the other way, Mr. Rimmer?" Sam asked. "It's dark down here."  
"Don't tell me you're afraid of the dark, miladdo," Rimmer snapped.

"Aren't you?"

"Of course not," Rimmer lied.  
They came to a dead end. The only way out, besides back the way they had come, was through an air duct. Rimmer removed the rusted grille.  
"You, Shorty," he said. "In there. Move it!"

"Is it too late to send him back?" Boromir asked Kochanski.

(Rimmer hadn't realized he had left his communicator on.)  
"Let's see what they get up to first," Kochanski said. Her own team hadn't found anything useful yet, but they were near the Drive Room, so hopefully soon they would get some answers.  
  
"Well, go on!" Rimmer ordered a terrified Pippin. "What are you waiting for?"  
The Hobbit looked up at that dark hole with growing dread. Nobody was getting him in there, not for anything!  
Frodo noticed Pippin's distress and said, "Give me a boost, Sam."  
"What for?" Then he realized what for. "Oh, no you don't! You're not going in there alone!"  
"Someone has to."

The creatures watched and waited . . . .

"Can you see anything yet?" Rimmer called.

"No," Sam called back, "but something certainly smells odd . . ."

A bright blue light suddenly flooded the tunnel.

"What the . . . I thought it only did that when Orcs were around," Sam said.

Sure enough, at that moment, the creatures attacked.

"I'll hold them off!" Sam yelled, brandishing his own sword. "You go and warn the others!"  
"No! I won't leave you!"

"Man, this day just can't get any worse!" Cat complained as he fired his bazookoid at the creatures.  
"Trust me, miladdo, it can." Rimmer pointed out, hiding—er, supervising from under a table.  
One of the creatures shouted, "Give yourselves up! You cannot beat us!"  
"Smeg off."

Frodo scrambled out of the duct, swinging his sword at anything that moved. "Come on, Sam!"  
"I'm right behind you!" Suddenly he was grabbed by one of the creatures.  
"Goood eating, this one. Good meat."  
  
"Stand back, I'm going to shoot it," Cat said.  
Legolas waved him off. "Allow me."  
He nocked an arrow, said a silent prayer, and fired directly into the shaft.  
The arrow thudded home into the Orc's right eye. It screamed and let go of Sam, who crawled as fast as he could to the opening.  
"Thanks!"  
"Behind you!" called Gimli.

Cat whirled and fired another shot from his bazookoid, blasting three Orcs to kingdom come. "Team 2 to Team 1!" Rimmer shouted urgently into his microphone. "We're under attack! Repeat, we're under attack! The distress signal was a trap! Team 1, come in!"

Kochanski stared at her communicator. Rimmer's panicked message had taken her by surprise. Under attack? From whom?  
"Okay, I need someone to come with me to the Drive Room to set off the self-destruct," she said. "The rest of you go help Team 2!"

"Smeggin' 'ell." Lister gasped . . . .

The _Bocelli_ was swarming with dark, vaguely humanoid creatures. There had to be hundreds of them. "No life signs, Hol? Smeg!"

"Blast it!" Gandalf muttered in frustration, feeling his powers being seriously taxed as he helped the others fight off the Orc attacks.

Meanwhile, Kris and Boromir were in the Drive Room, attempting to access the self-destruct program.  
"Access denied," the ship's computer said. "Captain's voiceprint required for activation of self-destruct."  
"The smegging captain's dead!" Kochanski cried in frustration.  
"Could we bring him back as a hologram?" Boromir asked.  
"That might work. Computer, give us the captain's personnel file."  
"Accessing . . . personnel file. Elessar, Aaron, Captain."  
The file displayed a photo which looked very familiar . . .  
"It can't be," Kochanski gasped.  
"It's got to be his descendant," Boromir told her. "Maybe we could fool the computer into believing he's the captain."  
"It's the only chance we've got right now."

"Who?" Lister asked Kochanski and Boromir.

Then he saw the picture.  
"I'll go get 'im."

Lister found Legolas a few minutes later. "Yo, man, we need you."  
"What for?"  
"To impersonate a captain."

"A captain?"

"No time to explain. Just come with me!"  
"I'm a little busy right now!"  
There was a strangled cry of pain from behind them. Aragorn had been hit.

"Kryten, get them back to _Starbug_!" Kochanski ordered. "Start the engines and get ready to move!"  
"But what about you, ma'am?"  
"We'll be along as soon as we set the self-destruct going."

Kryten obeidently led the wounded Aragorn and his teammates back to Starbug . . .

"What do I do?" Legolas asked.

Lister ,meanwhile, had his hands full trying to keep the attackers back with just a bazookoid.

"There's too many of 'em!" he shouted in alarm.  
"Need a hand?"  
He looked down to see an unexpected face at his elbow.  
"This is better than riding skutters," Merry admitted.

The Orcs glared at Merry in annoyance . . . but soon enough they were fleeing for their lives. The Hobbit fought harder than one twice his size . . .  
. . . but that didn't keep him from getting a nasty gash down one leg. Lister winced at the sight of it. It was at least six inches long and looked fairly deep.

"We'd better get you to the medibay."

"Too bad there's not a skutter here for me to ride."

Elsewhere, Kochanski and Boromir waited to see if the computer would accept Legolas as the captain.  
"Voice print identification confirmed." the ship's computer said. "Awaiting code to begin final five minute self-destruct countdown."

"This is it right here," Kochanski said.

"8-1-6-5." Legolas repeated to the computer.

"Confirmed," the computer announced. "Beginning self-destruct countdown. Five minutes till self-destruct."  
"Let's get the smeg out of here!"

Back on Starbug, Rimmer instructed Holly, "Boost those engines to maximum power and keep them on standby until Lister and the others get back."  
"OK, matey."

Kryten was tending to the wounded. "Please don't fidget so, Mr. Aragorn."

"But I have to get back and help Legolas!" Aragorn insisted.

"Mr. Legolas can take care of himself."

"Not against all those Orcs he can't!" Aragorn shouted. "Now let me up!"

"Four minutes and twenty seconds to self-destruct." the computer voice announced as Kochanski, Lister, Legolas, and the others raced down the _Bocelli_'s corridors. "Four minutes and ten seconds to self-destruct. Four minutes and twenty to self-destruct. Three minutes and fifty seconds to self-destruct . . . ."  
  
Back on _Starbug_, Rimmer ordered Holly, "Keep those engines going full-blast! When Lister and the others get back, we'll bloody well have to leg it out of here in a hurry!"  
"Me for my hobbit-hole." Frodo groaned to himself.  
  
"Three minutes and ten seconds to self-destruct." The computer voice continued counting down the time left until the _Bocelli_'s thermonuclear self-destruct charges detonated. "Three minutes to self-destruct. Two minutes and fifty seconds to self-destruct. Two minutes and forty seconds to self-destruct."

"There's _Starbug_!" Kochanski shouted, pointing down the airlock at _Starbug_'s hatch.  
"And not a smeggin' minute too soon." Lister said, signalling Holly that they were coming aboard.

"Can we get clear in time?" Kochanski asked Kryten.   
The Mechanoid checked his calculations. "Only just."  
"Stop the yakking and start traveling!" Rimmer shouted, in full-on panic mode. This was not helping the general morale level at the moment.

"Hold on to your seat belts!"Lister shouted as _Starbug_ detached itself from the _Bocelli_ and fled back towards _Red Dwarf_ at maximum speed.

_Starbug_ wasn't really built for speed, but it seemed to sense the imminent explosion, and raced for the safety of _Red Dwarf_ like never before.  
Unfortunately, that made the ride a little rough, especially on the injured members of the party (including one who up till then hadn't realized he'd been injured) . . .

"Kryten, how much time till that thing goes off?" Lister asked.  
"Two minutes and forty-five seconds, sir."

The creatures inside the _Bocelli_ frantically looked for a way out.

"Two minutes and fifteen seconds to self-destruct...."

"So," Aragorn asked Legolas, "how did your descendant end up with my name?"  
"That's the funny thing," the Elf said. "I've traced it back, and it seems the bloodlines merged about 200 years after our time. So technically, he's your descendant as well as mine."

"One minute and forty-five seconds to self-destruct . . ."

"For God's sake, Kryten, are we out of the way yet?" Rimmer exclaimed.

"We stil have a good one hundred kilometers to go before we're safely out of the blast zone."  
"I don't suppose," Lister said to Gandalf, "you know some kind of hocus-pocus that can make this thing go faster?"  
Gandalf pondered this for a moment . . .  
  
"One minute and thirty seconds to self-destruct...."

One of the Orcs got the bright idea to find one of the _Bocelli_'s escape pods.  
Unfortunately he had no idea where they were. By the time he finally found the circular hatch that said "ESCAPE POD", it was too late.  
  
Gandalf raised his staff. "Couldn't hurt," he said . . .

"One minute to self-destruct...."

Suddenly, _Starbug_ took off at just under light speed.

"Forty-five seconds to self-destruct...."

"Way to go, man!" Lister exclaimed. He made a mental note never to diss the dude in the pointy hat.

"Thirty seconds to self-destruct...."

"We are now outside blast range," Kryten announced.  
_Starbug_ began to decelerate back to its normal snail's pace.

"Thirty seconds to self-destruct...."

"You just said that, Hol!" Lister pointed out.  
"Oh. Well, how many is it now?"  
Rimmer checked the readout. "Fifteen."  
"Right. Fifteen seconds to self-destruct. If you look out the window to your right, you'll get a good view of the _Placido Domingo_ or whoever he was going kaboom. Five seconds . . . four . . . three . . . two . . ."  
"I love a good explosion," Merry commented.  
"Remember the fireworks at--" Pippin started to say, but Frodo shushed him.  
"You're going to miss it."  
"One . . . there we go," said Holly.  
The _Andrea Bocelli_ blew apart in a tremendous and quite spectacular explosion.

A thermonuclear explosion the likes of which the universe hadn't seen in centuries erupted behind _Starbug_, sending a thunderous shock wave in all directions. They were tossed about a bit, but safely out of the blast range. All that happened was that several of them ended up spilling celebratory soda all over their trousers.

"My good suit!" Cat complained.

"Mr. Frodo, you're hurt!" Sam exclaimed.  
Frodo looked down. "No I'm not. That's just Mountain Dew."  
"No, it isn't." Sam pulled up Frodo's shirt to reveal a nasty-looking gash in his lower abdomen.

"Oh, smeg." gasped Lister.  
"Oh, smeg indeed." echoed Rimmer.

"How soon till we get back to _Red Dwarf_?" asked a visibly concerned Kochanski.

"Thirteen minutes," Kryten announced. "The skutters are preparing the Medical Unit as we speak."

Back on _Red Dwarf_, Gollum cowered in the drive room. He was lonely, and thought they had all left and weren't coming back.

But then he heard a noise . . . .

The skutters were on the move.

"My precious follows the little metal men, yes." Gollum said, tottering off after the skutters. "Maybe they knows where food is?"

But there was no food to be found in the Medical Unit, so he went off to find some more elsewhere.  
He missed the arrival of the _Starbug_ crew by mere seconds.

"Smeg, I could go for a curry." Lister said as he stepped off the gangplank and into _Red Dwarf_'s main docking bay. "How about you guys?"

"As soon as we get the wounded taken care of," Rimmer said, "I think we could all use a night out. I've got some great telegraph pole slides to show you . . ."

Kochanski looked at Rimmer as if he were insane. "We are not," she said, very slowly and deliberately, "spending the evening looking at telegraph pole slides."  
"Not without a couple of pints, anyway," Lister added.  
Pippin stopped short and smacked his forehead. "That's it! We forgot the lager back on that ship!"  
Everyone stared at him for one long moment.

"Lager?"

"Isn't that why we went?"

Lister rolled his eyes. "For smeg's sake."

Later that evening, they all went down to Parrot's for a curry, but since the ban on alcohol was still in effect, no lager.  
  



	10. I Have Some Good News And Some Bad News ...

**THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE _RED DWARF_**

PART 10 

(A/N: sorry about the typo last part! Should have been Part 9, not Part 8! More thanks to the reviewers at the end of this chapter, so stay tuned!)

When they got to Parrot's, however, all the curry was gone . . .

"Guess who's been here again," Kochanski said. "I don't suppose buffalo wings and mozzarella sticks will do?"  
They did very nicely, as it turned out.

"I don't suppose anyone would be interested in a game of Risk?" Rimmer ventured.

"NO!"  
"You don't have to be that way about it," Rimmer sulked.

"Perhaps you could give us a story, Mr. Frodo?" Sam ventured hopefully.

"I suppose I could at that."

Rimmer cast Frodo a jealous glare. "I still say we should have gone with the telegraph pole slides."

As Frodo began telling some story about an Elf and a mortal woman in love, Boromir snuck away, on a very sneaky mission.  
He wanted to find Kochanski's diary, and read it.  
Seeing as how she was a hologram now, and unable to write anything in it, there wouldn't be anything about him, but there would be some useful background information about her, as well as potential ammunition for the fights that would precede their eventual breakup.  
The problem was that Boromir was mostly unfamiliar with female bedrooms, and had no idea where she'd keep her diary.  
Under the mattress? No, though it did yield four copies of "Stud Muffins of Mars", a beefcake magazine full of men with very little clothing. Put that in the "ammunition" file.  
The dresser drawers yielded nothing but spare uniforms, neatly folded, and pristine white undergarments.  
It was then that he spotted a book on the night stand. Clever, hiding it in plain sight! And disguised as something called "Lord of the Rings", too! (That sounded more pornographic than "Stud Muffins of Mars.")  
Boromir opened the book to about the middle . . . and got the shock of his life.  
It wasn't her diary.

It was something else entirely.

What had caught his interest was seeing his own name in print. He read a little further to see what whoever had written this book had to say about him.

Three chapters into the book, he felt dread in the pit of his stomach . . .

Who could know so much about him and his comrades, and their dark mission? Every detail was here, as if someone had been there taking notes.  
_No wonder she acted as if she knew us,_ he thought.

The question was, how to act on that discovery?

Five minutes later, Krissie felt hot breath on the back of her neck. She looked up to see Boromir standing there, holding out a book.  
"What is this?" he demanded.  
The room fell silent.   
Kris looked down at the book and immediately felt a sense of dread creeping through her. _Oh, no . . . not THAT book!_  
"Well?" Boromir persisted. "Explain this!"

All Kochanski could say in response was "Oh,smeg."

"What is that?" asked Legolas, who had the bad luck to walk in on them at that moment.

"Take a look." Boromir thrust the book at him, open to a particularly relevant page.

Legolas started reading . . . .

After a long while, he looked up and exclaimed, "But how can this be? How can this book know about us?"

None of them noticed Gollum skulking down the corridor behind them . . .

"Must find lager," he hissed to himself. "My precious wants drink!"

He wandered all over the crew quarters till he came to Selby's old cabin. He went in and rummaged through Selby's things until he found Selby's emergency wine coolers.

He opened one of them, took a swallow . . . and spit it out. The wine coolers, bad enough when they were fresh, had gone sour.

"We hates this!" Gollum said tossing the bottle away in disgust and resuming his search for his beloved lager. "It only good enough for Hobbitses!"

Kochanski attempted again to explain just what was going on. It would have been easier if she actually had any idea, but she didn't.

And as if things couldn't get any more awkward, Lister showed up a few moments later. "What's goin' on?"  
Boromir leapt on the new arrival. "Did you know about **this**?" he spat, practically throwing the book at Lister.  
Lister looked down. "Yeah, man, everyone knows about this. It's a real famous book! I've even started readin' it a bit. Course, I'm only in the second chapter, but--"  

Boromir blinked in surprise. "Does everyone here know this book?"  
"I don't," Cat offered helpfully. "I've seen the movie, though. You are **much** better-looking than that guy."

"Cat!" Lister hissed. "You're smeggin' embarrassin' me!"

All of this left Kochanski in a very awkward position. "It's not that I was deliberately keeping secrets from you . . ."

"Well, you didn't exactly go out of your way to tell us the whole story." Legolas grumbled.

"Look, if I'd told you, it would have messed up history. Your future history. It's very important that things happen as they happened, or . . . everything could get completely smegged up."

Gollum, meanwhile,was still ransacking Selby's cabin in his search for more wicked strength lager. "We must haves more lager!" he kept saying. "We wants it!"

He didn't find any lager, but he found magazines that made Lister's Playmates look like Sunday school books.

"Hmmm. My precious wants to read this."

"Read" was perhaps the wrong word, as this particular type of magazine contained very few words, but lots and lots of pictures.

Nevertheless, Gollum was intrigued.

"Why don't we just forget this whole thing?" Krissie exclaimed. "Forget you ever saw this!" She snatched the book away and tossed it in the air. "There! It's gone!"  
"Ow! No it isn't, it just hit me in the head!" said a very annoyed Cat.

"Oh. Sorry."  
Just then, who should come in but Gandalf. "I thought you should know," he announced, "that Kryten and I have made considerable progress toward finding the portal. We're in the neighborhood, so to speak, and should have it sometime in the next few days."

"First thing that's gone right in hours." Kochanski said to herself.

"Wait a minute," Cat said. "I don't get it."  
"Oh, big surprise there."

"Who asked you, Goalpost Head?"

"Just a minute!" Kochanski tried to maintain some order, but it was hopeless.

Fortunately, though, Kryten came by at that moment. "I have some good news and some bad news," he announced.

"What is it, Krytes?" Lister asked.

"Well, which did you want first?"  
"Start with the good news."

"Very well then,sir . . . We have finally located the long-missing portal, and it should open within six days."  
"That is good," Aragorn said. "So what's the bad news?"  
"Look out your window, sir."  
They all looked out the nearest window.  
"See that little blue-green planetoid down there?"  
"The one that looks blue, green, and planetoidy?" Pippin quipped. He was bored, and he really wanted to go ride some skutters, but they were still hiding.  
"That would be the one."  
"It's down there?" Lister asked.  
"On its largest continent. Well, to be precise, on its **only** continent."  
"Has it got an atmosphere?" asked Rimmer.  
"Yes, quite suitable. But that's not the main concern."  
"Well, what is? Get to the point, Eraser-Head, I'm missing my grooming time!"  
Kryten almost hated to tell them this, seeing as how they'd just had such a narrow escape just a few hours ago. "Well, sirs, and ma'am, that planet is full of, erm . . ."  
"WHAT?" they all demanded.  
"Those creatures," Kryten said, in a whimper. He hated being shouted at. "The ones that were on the _Andrea Bocelli_. They're all over the place."  
"Oh, is that all?" Legolas said, picking up his bow. He looked around at his companions. "Let's go hunt some orc."

(As promised . . . a special thanks to my reviewers.

Louise: glad you like it. 

TigerBabe: yeah, you were right. It works, in a weird sort of way.

Rufferto: more hilarity to come! Might want to get your sides reinforced.

Wynjamor: thank you for your words of encouragement!

GreyLadyBast: disturbing? Maybe, but entertaining as well, I hope.

Erkyah: hope you liked Legolas saving the day in the last chapter.

Iz: I think we've had enough drinking, but maybe we can squeeze in more Cat.

DemonGirl: :D

Serendu: Thank you, I will!

Marina_Arwen: More craziness to come! Stay tuned!

I'm glad to see so many people actually like this. This was just a weird idea that occurred to me, but apparently weird is good. Or maybe it's just that this hasn't been done before. Anyway, keep reading, and reviewing—you're great!)

(P.S. Wanna see some smegups?)


	11. Running Out Of Time

**THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE _RED DWARF_**

PART 11 

"Are you **_mad_**?!!!" Rimmer demanded. "I say let's get the smeg out of here on the double! Who's with me?"

Everyone looked at him as if he'd gone spare.

"Rimmer,we've got to get these guys home." Lister told him."We can't just run off, even if there are a whole bunch of smeggin' orcs out there . . . ."

"Well, you can count me out," Rimmer said. "I'll help organize the goodbye party, but I stop there. I don't hunt anything dangerous."

Kochanski glared at him. "You're coming, and that's an order."  
"You can't give me orders! You're dead!"  
"Well, so are you!"

Rimmer tried to think of a comeback . . . but all that came to mind was "I know you are, but what am I?" Much too juvenile for a serious conversation.

"We're waiting, Mr. _Second Technician_ Rimmer."

"What, right now? But I'm not dressed for anything dangerous!"

"Kryten, get him a bazookoid."

"But, ma'am--"  
"Just do it!"  
Kryten stalked off, muttering something about how was a hologram supposed to hold a bazookoid.

Kochanski then looked up at Holly's face on the monitor and said, "Is there any way we can augment this ship's defenses?"

"How? Not a repair shop in miles."

"We can't." Rimmer insisted somewhat smugly. "So it looks like we're going with the retreat option after all."

"How many times do I have to say this?" Kochanski snapped at him. "You are not in--"  
A skutter went whizzing by, with someone short in pursuit.  
"Come back here! I only want to be your friend!"

The skutter tried frantically to elude Merry's grasp . . .

"Oh, not again!" Kochanski moaned.

Frodo shook his head. "Yes,again."

"Allow me, sirs." Kryten stepped in front of the skutter . . . and kept Merry distracted while the skutter made its getaway.

"What'd you do that for?" Merry demanded.

"You were about to crush the skutter, sir." Kryten said.  
"Could we get back to the smeggin' Orcs, man?" Lister interrupted.

"Crush the skutter?" Merry was indignant. "I'm not that heavy! I'll have you know I'm considered downright skinny for a Hobbit! Crush the skutter, indeed!"

Rimmer smirked. "Those things are only sixty pounds!" he said. "You're at least twice that."  
"I am **not**!"

"Are too."

"No I'm not! Am I, Pip?"  
"Oh, no. Positively anorexic," Pippin reassured him.

"Smeg," Lister chortled, "you must be jokin'!"

"Said the pot to the kettle," Rimmer snickered.

"COULD WE GET BACK TO THE SMEGGING PROBLEM AT HAND?!!" Kochanski spluttered. "WE-ARE-ABOUT-TO BE-ATTACKED-BY-ORCS!!!"

"I thought they were all on the planet," said Cat. "We don't go to the planet, we don't have a problem."

"'Fraid it's not that simple, chaps." Holly interrupted.  
Rimmer rolled his eyes. "What the smeg is the problem **now**?"

"The window's closing. In about eighteen hours the portal will close, and our chances of finding another one are about the same as finding a clean sock in Lister's laundry basket."

"Could this day get any worse?" Lister said to himself.

Rimmer looked at him. "Never say that, Lister. It could **always** get worse."

And sure enough, it did, in several stages.  
First, one member of the party turned out to be allergic to curry.

Then the scanners went down.

Then _Starbug_ developed mechanical problems that would only just be fixed in time.  
It was not a good day.  
  
Frodo decided to have a nice relaxing bath.  
Alone.  
"Really, I'll be all right. There's no need for you to come in with me."

"But Mr. Frodo, sir . . ."

"Sam, I'll be fine. It's not like anything's going to climb out of the drain pipe and attack me."

"But we're not supposed to leave you alone . . ."

"I think I'll be all right for a few minutes in the bath. Unless it's become a spectator sport."

Neither one of them knew that Gollum was skulking about the access tubes overhead. He was looking for food, but he stopped when he picked up a particular scent.  
"The ring!"

He licked his lips and followed Frodo. "Soon the ring comes back to my precious, and we kills stinking Hobbitses, yes!" He cackled insanely . . . .

Frodo couldn't hear Gollum's mutterings over the bathwater running. He stripped off all his clothes . . .

. . . and was horrified to feel Gollum's unseen form pounce on his back. "You gives my precious the ring!" Gollum screamed, lunging for Frodo's throat. "It's ours, and Hobbitses gives it back or we kills them!"


	12. The Terribly Messy Thing That Happened t...

**THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE _RED DWARF_**

PART 12 

Frodo hadn't wanted much. Just a nice, relaxing bath. A few moments to himself.  
Not being killed would be nice, too.  
Gollum, who had been stalking him for days, tightened his grip on the Hobbit's throat. "Gives me the precious!"

"No!"

Frodo kicked out with his right foot, catching Gollum in an unfortunate place. This gave him the opportunity to twist free and escape the room.  
The first person he ran into was Cat. He tried breathlessly to explain his predicament, but all he could say was "G . . . Goh . . ."  
"Where are your clothes, bud?" Cat demanded.  
"Goh . . . gol . . ."  
"What, the water too hot? Too cold?"  
"Ruh . . . ruh . . ."  
"Ruh? Rubber duckie? You forgot your rubber duckie! I'll let you borrow mine, if you--"  
By this time Frodo had recovered somewhat. "Help . . . me," he gasped.  
"I am! Let me go get the duckie--"  
Unfortunately, Gollum had also recovered. He came tearing around the corner, out for blood. Hobbit blood.

"We kills Hobbitses!" Gollum shouted.  
"What is your problem, bud?" Cat asked him.

Gollum lunged for Frodo, who tried to duck out of the way but ended up colliding with Cat and knocking them both over.

Frodo grabbed a metal rod to use as a club . . .

"Stay back!" he warned. "I will hurt you if I have to!"  
Gollum's eyes were fixed on the ring, hanging at the end of its chain around Frodo's neck. "Mine . . ."

"Uh, guys," Cat smiled weakly, "can't we talk this over?"

Just then Sam came running up. He knew there'd be trouble, he just knew it.

"You gives us the ring!" Gollum shouted at Frodo as Cat stood between them. "It's ours, it is, and we kills stinking Hobbitses if they not gives it!"  
"Mr. Frodo, sir . . ."

"Not now, Sam!"  
"But--"

Gollum lunged at Cat. "We kills furry creature because it helps Hobbitses steal our ring!"  
"Hey! My suit! You're getting it all wrinkled!" Cat complained, not noticing the minor detail that Gollum was trying to kill him.

Lister was in the middle of making a late breakfast (eggs with extra curry powder and bacon on the side) when he saw the commotion.  
"What the smeggin' 'ell?"  
"Get it off me!" Cat pleaded.

"It's Gollum." Frodo said, still holding the metal rod. "He attacked us without warning . . ."  
"We hates furry creature!" Gollum hissed. "Hates it! It helps Hobbitses steal our ring!"  
Lister tried to tackle Gollum, but it was like trying to hold onto a wet garden hose. No matter how he tried, Lister just couldn't get a grip. "Smeggin' 'ell!"

There was the sound of something metallic hitting something hard. Gollum slumped over.

"Well, that takes care of him." Frodo put the bar down as he suddenly remembered he wasn't wearing anything. "I'll, um, just go have my bath while you lot take care of him."

"What the smeg is his problem, man?" Lister asked Sam. "What's this fixation he has on rings?"

"Not just any ring, sir. THE ring. He had it for so long that it took over his mind . . . and made him the hideous thing you see now."  
Lister shook his head. "Sorry, man. I'm not following you."

"It's all in the book. I haven't read it all the way through yet, but I've looked at some of it."

Lister turned around and saw Kryten standing right behind him. "What do we do now, Kryte?"  
"I recommend we move Mr. Gollum to a stasis booth until we're ready to leave. After that, we'll keep him sedated."  
"Why can't we just kill 'im?"  
"Because he is an important part of the book, sir. Because of him, the ring was . . . is . . . will be . . . oh, I hate what time travel does to verb tenses! Anyway, we need to send him back with the others."

"Mr.Lister's right." Sam interjected. "We should just kill him, no matter what that book says . . ."

"But that could completely unravel the fabric of space/time! No, we have to put you all back exactly as we found you . . ."

"And we'd better do it fast." Holly piped up from a nearby monitor screen. "That portal's closing in sixteen hours."

Meanwhile, in the Men's room just off the Drive Room . . . Merry was barfing to beat the band.

Never having had curry before, he'd had no idea it would cause such an adverse reaction. In between bouts of sickness, he lay on the floor, one cheek pressed against the tile's coolness. He just wanted to die and get it over with instead of dragging it out like this.

"Merry?" It was Pippin.

"What?" Merry groaned.  
"Are you all right?"  
Merry rolled his eyes, but of course Pippin couldn't see him. "No!"  
"Can I come in?"  
"What for?"

"To help you,of course."  
Merry groaned. "Nobody can help me in the state I'm in right now."

"Should I go get help?" The younger Hobbit sounded almost panicked.  
"No . . ."

Pippin heard Merry vomit again. "I'll get help."

Kochanski and Boromir were having a moment alone.  
"So what's this secret way to touch a hologram you were telling me about?"  
"Come closer."  
They were just inches apart when Pippin came running in. "Miss Krissie! Help!"  
With a sigh, Kochanski pulled away and looked at Pippin. "What's wrong? Did Gollum escape or something?"  
"No, nothing like that. Merry's really sick . . ."

"How sick?"

"He's throwing up. And he won't let me in to see him, and that's not like him, he always lets me help when he's sick . . ."

Rimmer looked at Lister askance. "All right, Listy, what did you do to him?"

"I didn't do anythin'!"  
"What exactly are you doing in my room?" Kochanski demanded.  
"Can we worry about that later? We've got an emergency!" Lister turned to Pippin. "Where is he?"  
"Down this way. I'll take you there."  
  
"Merry," Kochanski called through the door, "are you all right?"  
_No, I'm not bloody all right_, Merry thought, but he was too weak to say a word.  
"Merry!"  
Desperate times called for desperate measures. "Holly, open the door," Kochanski ordered.  
The door whooshed open with an impressive sound. Unfortunately, they weren't in a mood to be impressed. They rushed in and found Merry crouched over the toilet bowl, gripping the sides of the seat nearly hard enough to break it. His face was flushed and sweaty, and his eyes were closed.  
"We have to get him down to the Medical Unit," Kochanski decided. "He looks awful."

The skutters demurred....

"Go get a stretcher," Kochanski ordered them.  
"No time," said Boromir. He picked the halfling up and slung him over one shoulder.  
"Smeg! He's gonna chuck right down your back, man!" Lister warned him.  
"I'll take that chance."

Lister shrugged. "OK, man. I'll get the barf bags."

Kryten was waiting for them, Medi-scanner prepped and ready to go.

"I hope it's nothing serious." Gandalf confided to Lister as Merry was gently placed on the medi-scanner table.

"Go and get Frodo," Merry told Pippin.  
"But--I don't want to leave you . . ."  
"Go get him!"  
Pippin looked around, at the room full of people, and decided Merry probably wouldn't die while he was gone. So he went to Frodo's quarters.

Meanwhile,the skutters got as far away from the Hobbits as they possibly could.

Frodo was just finishing getting dressed when Pippin rushed in.

"What is it--?" Frodo started to ask, then he saw Pippin standing there. "Pippin, what's wrong?"

"It's Merry. He's very sick . . ."

"How sick?"  
"Really sick! He told me to get you . . ."

"How much longer until the portal closes?"

"Fifteen hours," Holly told them.  
Frodo silently cursed. It was all his fault. Everything was always his fault.

He rushed to the nearest turbolift . . .

"Oh, no . . ." Sam groaned. He didn't like the lifts--or, more accurately, they didn't like **him**.  
"Come on, Sam."

"There must be some other way to get there..."

Frodo almost smiled. "Don't tell me you're afraid of a little mechanical box."  
"I'm not afraid of it, sir, I just don't like what it does to my stomach."

"We've got a bit more serious problem to be overcome at the moment, Sam." Frodo said. "The portal closes in fifteen hours and Merry's taken sick."

"Has he? What with?"  
"Don't know yet."

"That's all we need."

(A/N: I've been told my chapters are a bit on the short side. Sorry about that, but I'm just trying to get them out as soon as I can. We're heading into the home stretch now! I'll try to make the last few chapters longer for you. In the meantime, keep reading, and I'll keep writing!)


	13. Your Basic Good News/Bad News Situation

**THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE _RED DWARF_**

PART 13 

The lift's automated service announcement came on. "Welcome to Ship's Lift Number Four Hundred and Seventy-Three. Novadyne Lift Systems thanks you for choosing us today, and reminds you--"  
"Yes, thank you, can you just take us to the Medical floor?" Frodo interrupted.

"No need to be rude."

"I'm sorry," Frodo said, not knowing why he was apologizing to a mechanical box, "but we are in something of a hurry."  
"You probably won't want the in-lift meal, then."

"Not particularly, no."

"Oh, don't mention meals," Sam groaned.  
There was a sudden lurch as the lift started up. A small illuminated sign lit up above them. It said: ENJOY YOUR TRIP.

Sam clutched his stomach.

Just as he thought he couldn't hold on any longer, the lift slowed to a stop.  
"We hope you have enjoyed your stay with us. Please remember Novadyne Lift Services for all your--"  
Frodo pressed the button and closed the doors on the rest of the speech. "Heaven save us from talking mechanical boxes."

"Now which way is the Medical Unit?"

"Down the hall, first door on the right." Kryten said, escorting his Hobbit charges to the medi-bay.

"I think I'm going to die," Merry moaned.  
A lone skutter approached him.

"Hi, skutter."

The skutter inclined its three-pronged head, as if asking what was wrong.

"I'm dying." Merry said.

The skutter looked up at him. It wasn't quite sure what dying was, but it thought it was a bad thing.  
It rested its head on Merry's shoulder.

"What do we do?" Legolas asked Lister.

"There must be something we can give 'im."

"You'd better give it to him fast." Rimmer said. "That portal's closing in fourteen hours."

"First we have to find out what's wrong."

"What's to find out?" Merry groaned. "I'm _dying_."

"I doubt it's that serious."

Merry looked at Kryten with a hurt expression. "Don't you believe me?"

"It's not a question of belief, sir. Ah, the medi-scanner has finished its diagnosis." Kryten shooed the skutter away and read the long strip of machine code. "It seems you have a rather serious allergy to curry."  
"A what?"  
"Really more of a sensitivity . . ."

Rimmer groaned. "This is just smegging lovely."

"I think the important question," said Aragorn, "is how do we get rid of it?"  
"In fourteen hours?" Kochanski added.

"Smeg," Lister said, "we've really got our hands full."

"Is he going to die?" Pippin asked.

"Not if we can help it, Mr.Pippin." Kryten said.

If you could just get him to stop being sick long enough to get him through the portal," said Holly, "that should do."

Kryten turned to Perky and Stabhim. "Can you carry him?"  
The skutters looked at each other. Hadn't there been enough of that already?

"Pinky? Bob?"

The door whooshed open (impressively), and Cat rushed in.  
"There you are, bud!"

"Hello, Mr.Cat." Merry said weakly.

"Is this a bad time?"  
"Yes, I think so," said Rimmer.

Holly took the opportunity to record another log entry.  
"Ship's Log . . . um, whatever today's date is. It's your basic good news/bad news situation: we've found a portal so the strange people can go home. It's getting them there that's the problem. _Starbug_'s got some mechanical problems, and one of the short little visitors is sick. I just hope it's not catching . . ."

Gandalf and Lister gazed in concern at Merry.

"Has he ever been this sick before?" Lister asked.

"He's been sick quite a few times before," Gandalf answered, "but not to this extent..."

There was a blip as Holly appeared on the monitor.  
"Good news. Repairs to _Starbug_ are going well. Should be ready in about six hours."

"That's the first good news I've heard all day." Rimmer said.

"I think I've found something," Kryten announced.

"Wha'?"

"A possible cure. It's right here in the medical literature."

Everybody except Merry crowded around Kryten.

"The only problem is, we don't seem to have two of the key ingredients."

"What are they?" Aragorn asked. "Perhaps I have them already."

"I have a complete inventory list here, Mr. Aragorn." Kryten said, handing him a list of the ingredients in question.

As it turned out, the ingredients were in his pack, and the two of them set to making the medicine.  
Making it was the easy part. Getting Merry to actually take it . . . that was a little harder.

"No. I don't like the way it smells." Merry turned away when Kochanski tried to put the spoon in his mouth.

"But you need to take it, to get better."  
"I don't want to."  
Kochanski felt like the mother of a five-year-old. "It's good for you."  
"You can't make me!"

"Kryten, help . . ."

"Do you want me to hold him down, ma'am?"  
Krissie hadn't thought of that, but perhaps there were other ways than force. "If you could just **talk** to him, maybe . . ."

Merry looked up at Kryten with mournful eyes. "Please don't make me take that horrible stuff, Mr. Kryten, sir . . . .'

"I'm sorry, Mr. Merry, but Ms. Kochanski is right. You do need to take it in order to get well." Kryten hated having to agree with Kochanski ("arrogant cow," he muttered under his breath), but unfortunately it was the only choice at the moment.

Merry reluctantly opened his mouth . . .

The stuff tasted as bad as it smelled. Worse, if possible. It was all he could do to swallow it without gagging. And then there was the question of whether or not it would stay down.

Everybody waited . . .

"Why are you all looking at me like that?" Merry asked.

"We want to see if you're gonna spin your head like that chick in _The Exorcist_." Cat said.

"Cat!"

"What?"

Lister shook his head. "Never mind."

"Oi, what's happening?" Holly said to Kryten.

"We have just given Mr. Merry his medicine. Hopefully it should begin working soon."  
"Good. That little hairy fellow says he's having a hard time with _Starbug_. Perhaps one of you chaps could go assist him?"

Rimmer emphatically shook his head. "Don't look at me, I'm not going anywhere near that hairy little git."

"I believe I should go," Kryten said.

"Good idea." Kochanski said, checking Merry's pulse.

"Will he be all right, do you think?"

"I hope so."

Cat decided it was time to do another makeover. This time he set his sights on Aragorn.  
"I'm thinkin' black," he said, trying to picture whether the ranger would look better in leather or suede.  
"Oh, no! Not me! I'm fine the way I am!"

"C'mon, bud," Cat said, "give it a try!"

"NO!"  
"Okay, if the outfit's out, can we do something different with your hair?"  
  


(A/N: There will be smegups in the next chapter, so I need some questions from you. What do you most want to know?)


	14. No, Kryten, THAT Planet THERE!

**THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE _RED DWARF_**

**PART 14**

"How much longer, Holly?"

"Hmmm . . . oh, 'bout twelve hours and thirty-six minutes." Holly said.

"Plenty of time to have one last drink," said Lister, prompting Kochanski to roll her eyes.

"I think we have more important things to worry about right now than one last bash!"

"Wha'?"

Down in the landing bay, things were going a bit better.  Repairs to _Starbug_ were almost complete.

"I see things are going well, Mr. Gimli, sir," Kryten said. "I hope the skutters have been of some help to you."

"That they have, Kryten." Gimli nodded appreciatively.

Two of the reserve skutters were checking the underside of the ship. A third was polishing the windows.

The six reserve skutters didn't have names. Once he found this out, Gimli had given them all Dwarfish names . . . which Kryten found somewhat difficult to pronounce.

"What remains to be done?"

"Well, Mr. Gimli," Kryten said, "perhaps you could do something about the furry dice in the cockpit . . ."

"The **what**?"

Lister, who'd come down for a progress report, was horrified at what he'd just heard. "Smeg, Krytes, you're not takin' my furry dice away, are you? Those are my lucky furry dice that I've had on every car I've ever owned!"

"With due respect, Mr. Lister, sir," Kryten said, "'lucky' isn't exactly the first word that springs to mind where your furry dice are concerned."

"Okay, so they're a little worse for wear, but I'm keepin' 'em. It was under those dice that I first made love in a car."  
"I'm sure we didn't need to hear that, sir," Kryten said.

Elsewhere, Merry was getting better, but he was reluctant to take his next dose of medicine.  
"No!" he insisted, turning away from the spoon. "It tastes horrible!"

"But you have to take it!" Kochanski insisted. "I thought we went over this already!"

"C'mon, be good now, Merry!" urged Pippin.

"No, it was bad enough the first time!"

Gandalf came into the medi-bay and said to Kochanski, "What's all this, then?"

"She's trying to poison me!" Merry burst out.

"He's being melodramatic." Kochanski insisted.

Gandalf sighed and came up to Merry's bed. "Why must you be so stubborn?"  
"I don't want to take that ucky stuff!"

"Now, really, Merry, you're being ridiculous about this." Gandalf chided him.

Merry's response to this was to clamp his mouth shut and turn away.

Gandalf, in turn, decided to try a spot of bribery.

"It's such a shame," he said. "I had all this lovely chocolate ice cream, but it seems Merry isn't hungry. Ah, well, I'm sure I can--"

That changed Merry's attitude rather quickly. His mouth seemed to come unclamped all of a sudden.

"How did you do that?" Kochanski asked Gandalf breathlessly.

"Oh . . . a little applied psychology."

Rimmer came to the main hangar to inspect Starbug.

"Very nice," he said. "Very . . . well done. Whatever it is you did." It was obvious by the blank look on his face that he didn't have a clue what had been done.

Gimli decided to have a little fun with him.

As Kryten watched, the dwarf ducked inside the cockpit, where he pulled a lever . . . and gave Kryten a wink as Rimmer got a little too close to one of the starboard steam vents.  
WHOOSH!

Rimmer screeched much louder than was actually necessary. 

A klaxon went off.  
"Purple alert, purple alert," Holly announced.  
"What's a purple alert?"

"It's not quite as bad as a red alert, but a bit more serious than a blue alert." Kryten explained. "We'd best get up to the drive room and see what's happening."

So up to the Drive Room they went.

"It's those smegging Orcs again, isn't it?" Rimmer grumbled.

"Sort of."

"What do you mean, sort of?" Rimmer was truly getting annoyed now.

"Well, those creature-thingies down on the planet," Holly said, "well . . . um . . ."

"WHAT? Spit it out, you doddering idiot!"

"They've got bazookoids."

"They **what**? How in the name of smeg did those slavering monsters get bazookoids?"  
"Maybe a Space Corps ship crashed down there--" Lister suggested, but the others had their doubts about that theory.

"How many more minutes we got, Hol?"

"Let me see . . ." Holly tried to think (which wasn't easy for her).

"Take your time," said Rimmer. He was, of course, being sarcastic.

"Hang on, I'm thinking. It's hard work, thinking."  
"What's going on?" demanded Cat, who didn't like having his nap interrupted.

"We're in deep smeg," said Rimmer.

Cat looked worried. "How deep?"

"Do the words 'get a shovel' give you any clue?"

"Uh, yeah..." the Cat said two seconds before he ran off.  
Kochanski sighed. "Well, he's certainly a big help..."

"Right." Rimmer went into "command" mode. "Have everyone meet in the hangar bay. Tell our guests to change back into the clothes they came in . . ."  
"Oh, I think he looks nice," Kochanski said. "I don't care if it's an anachronism, it's a dead sexy one."

Rimmer rolled his eyes. "Oh, spare me . . ."

So the call went out, and the Fellowship assembled one more time in the main hangar.

The skutters, however, were staying far away. They were _not_ anxious to be ridden again . . . although they would have been some help in the battle against the planet-side Orcs.

"C'mon!" Merry pleaded with them. "Just one more ride?"

"The last one ever!" Pippin added.

The skutters looked at each other, then at Merry and Pippin . . .

It was a very short ride . . . but fun for the hobbits.

"Have you got all your gear?" Lister asked.

"Yes, thank the Valar." Gandalf said.

Cat was trying to persuade Legolas to pack the "hippie" gear in his pack. "But it looks so **good** on you, man!"

Legolas demurred . . . .

Lister passed out the bazookoids. "Shoot to kill," he urged his comrades, "'cause you can bet your last dollarpound they will."

"How d'you work this?" Sam had his pointed backwards.

Kryten corrected the mistake. "It's this button, sir," he said, after he had gotten the bazookoid turned the right way.

Gollum's stasis booth was wheeled out.

"Do we **have** to bring him?" Frodo asked.

Rimmer rolled his eyes scornfully. "Well, of _course_ you have to bring him, you gimboid. If you go back and he doesn't, it'll smeg up the story right proper. Just make sure you hide all the wicked strength lager when you get back to Middle Earth."

"I don't think we have any, actually."

"Well, whatever the Middle Earth equivalent is, then." Rimmer retorted impatiently.

Kochanski looked at Boromir, not knowing what to say.

She cleared her throat. "Well . . ." she began, and then didn't know what to say after that.

"What is it?"

"I . . . guess this is it. Goodbye."  
"I'm afraid so."  
"It's been fun."  
"Yes, it has."

Rimmer rolled his eyes. "Oh, for smeg's sake...."

Lister glared at him. "Give 'em a moment!"

"Now then . . ." Kochanski said, eyes blinking.

There were a lot of unfinished sentences.  
"I . . ."  
"Yes?"  
"We . . . um . . ."  
"Don't . . ."

"Get on with it." an exasperated Rimmer grumbled under his breath.

The planet loomed larger and larger before them.   
"ETA, Kryten?" Lister asked.

"Five hours, nineteen minutes, sir."

"Smeg! That doesn't leave us much time to fight our way to the portal before it closes! We'll have to get in as close as we can."  
"Excuse me," Rimmer said. "I thought I gave the orders round here!"  
Lister rolled his eyes. "Fine. Give the order."  
"Get in as close as you can," Rimmer ordered.  
Kryten, being a Mechanoid, was not programmed for smart-aleck comments. "Yes, sir!"

Everybody held their breath . . . 

Then they all held it a bit too long and gasped for air. "Smeggin' 'ell."

Lister choked out.

Kryten set them down less than a kilometer from the portal site. "There we are, sirs," he said jovially.

"It should be safe," Gandalf proclaimed. "The noise of the landing probably scared off all the--"  
A huge army of Orcs rushed up to intercept them.  
"Er . . . never mind."


	15. All Things Must End, Bud

**THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE _RED DWARF_**

**PART 15**

"Kill them!" the Orc leader shouted to his troops.

"One mob of homicidal Orcs can just ruin your whole day," quipped Kochanski, arming her bazookoid.

"How are we for time?" Aragorn shouted to Kryten.

"It's going to be a tight squeeze, sir."Kryten told him as laser beams and bazookoid shells started flying.

"HOW tight?"  
"Nine minutes, thirty-seven seconds, sir."

"Oh smeg." Lister said.  
"Oh double smeg." Rimmer echoed.

"Run for it," Lister yelled. "We'll provide covering fire."  
Rimmer looked at him. "We will?"

Aragorn and Kochanski both looked at each other and said... [CENSORED]

The Orcs kept charging . . . .

"I got 'em," Cat said. He raised his bazookoid . . . only to find that it was pointing the wrong way.

"Don't shoot!" Lister warned, but it was too late.

Cat fired right over the heads of the Hobbits, who were running like mad for the portal site--at least, where they _thought_ it was.

"I'll be glad to get out of here, Mr. Frodo." Sam said as he dodged laser fire.  
"That makes two of us, Sam." Frodo agreed.

Legolas was running out of arrows. And still the Orcs came.

"Oh TRIPLE smeg!" Lister and Rimmer said together.

"We're never gonna make it!"

"Bugger that," Gandalf said, and waved his staff around.  
An unbreakable force bubble appeared around them. They could move, taking the bubble with them, but no Orcs could get in.

"Now what?" Lister asked the wizard as the Orcs swore at them.

"I suggest we recamp at the portal site."

The group quickened their pacing, with Gollum protesting every step of the way.

"Why'd we have to let him out?" Sam protested.  
Rimmer gave him a sharp look. "Those stasis booths cost money, you know! We can't just be leaving them all over creation, can we?"

"My precious does not like this!"Gollum rasped.

"Time?" Lister demanded.

"Eight minutes, forty-four seconds." Kochanski said.

"We're not gonna make it!" Cat wailed.

"Oh, do shut up." Rimmer sighed.

They finally reached the portal site with only two minutes to spare.

"Well, mates," Lister shouted over the rumble of the portal, "looks like this is it!"

"But won't this smeg up the story?" Kochanski asked.

"I don't know." Lister admitted ruefully. "But . . ."

"Not to worry," Gandalf said. "I've prepared a special memory spell that will make them forget everything from the moment we arrived."

"You done this before?"

"Well, no, actually . . ."

That scared the smeg out of Lister. "What if it doesn't work?"

"Give them some of your vindaloo."Rimmer quipped." That should do the trick."

"Here's a better question," Cat said. "How do we get out of this bubble-thingy?"

Gandalf concentrated. The bubble became a single wall between them and the oncoming Orcs.

"One minute forty-one seconds." Kryten called, straining to make himself heard . . . as the Orcs kept firing their bazookoids at the shield wall.

You could barely see the portal unless you were looking directly at it. It was just a shimmer in the air, like heat coming up off a hot pavement. 

But Middle Earth could be seen quite distinctly...

"Good luck, man." Lister leaned down and patted Frodo on the shoulder.

"Thank you, Mr. Lister." Frodo said as he began to enter the portal.

"You really would have liked that outfit," Cat said to Aragorn. "And you would have looked good in it too!"

Aragorn didn't reply...

"Well," Cat said, "see you, man."  
"Look, we haven't got all that much time!" Rimmer helpfully pointed out. "Can we just get on with it?"

"We're tryin', man!" Lister shouted as Merry and Pippin waved farewell to Kryten and entered the portal.

Gimli looked over his shoulder at _Starbug_. "You take care of that great beast!" he called out, before he too disappeared into the portal.

"My precious is getting frightened," said Gollum, listening to (and cowering from) the bazookoid fire.

"Here y'are," Lister said, holding out a can of lager (which earned him a rather alarmed look from Rimmer). "One for the road."

"My precious thanks you." said Gollum, emptying the can in one swallow before diving into the portal. The empty can whizzed through Rimmer's leg as it was thrown away.  
"D'you mind?" Rimmer cried indignantly.

The last one through was Legolas, who even as he was stepping through kept firing off arrows in defense of Lister and his comrades.

"Keep the outfit!" Cat called out to him.  
Legolas nodded, not really sure where he could wear such an outlandish costume, but wanting to be nice.  
When he was gone, the shimmer vanished. Kryten confirmed it with the psi-scan: the portal was gone.

"And now, sirs, I humbly suggest . . ."

"How long d'you think this shield thing'll last?" Lister asked worriedly.  
"Not long, I should think," Rimmer said.  
They legged it double-time back to _Starbug_.  
Kochanski hadn't said anything in a long time, but no one noticed. They were too busy dodging bazookoid fire. 

But the moment they got back to _Starbug_ and lifted off, she started crying.  
_Oh, smeg,_ Lister thought. "What's the matter?"

"I'll never see him again!" she wailed. "And he's going to die and . . . and . . . and he won't even remember me! Oh, switch me off!"  
"You don't mean that," Lister said, in what he hoped was a tender manner.  
Kochanski nodded. "I do! I don't want to go on without him!"  
Rimmer rolled his eyes. "Please spare us the melodrama."

"Rimmer?"  
"Yes, Listy?"  
"Smeg off."

She wouldn't stop, though. All the way back to _Red Dwarf_ she kept going on about how she wanted to be switched off because she couldn't stand the pain.

"Are you sure you want to go through with this, Ms. Kochanski?" Holly asked her when they finally got back to _Red Dwarf_.  
"Quite sure." Kochanski replied, blinking back more tears. "Switch me off **now**."  
"Can you switch Rimmer off too while you're at it?" Lister asked Holly.  
Rimmer glared.

Lister wanted to talk her out of it. He wanted to give her a million reasons why she should stay, only he couldn't think of any. He wanted to do anything, say anything, if it would change her mind.  
Then he saw her face. That was enough to silence his protests.  

"I'm gonna miss those guys," Cat mused.

"I'm gonna miss Kochanski." Lister said.

"You won't want to be seeing the video tape, then," Holly said suddenly.  
"What video?" Lister asked.  
"Hang on, it's here somewhere . . ."

Lister, Kryten, and Cat all looked at each other. "What video?"

"Oh, didn't I tell you? I made a little video of that going-away party you had the other night. Or was it the coming-aboard party? I don't know, either way we had short people everywhere . . ."  
"Play the vid, Hol."

If she'd had shoulders, Holly would have shrugged.

It started off with a closeup of a lager can. From there it pulled back to a shot of someone short and hairy and another, taller someone in a black wig singing "I Got You Babe."

"God, tell me I didn't just see what I think I saw." Rimmer pleaded as Cat was shaking his head. 

"That is **not** a good look for him."  
Lister shushed him, and they watched some more.

Kochanski was doing the Hustle with Boromir and two of the Hobbits. Even Gandalf was getting into the groove.

Lister stared in utter disbelief, and Rimmer did the same when the silly costumes came out.

"For smeg's sake, Holly, stop the tape!" he shouted frantically, not wanting to see what came next.  
"I warned you chaps not to play this." she replied, shutting the machine off.  
Lister looked at his shipmates and said, "That tops it. There's only one thing for us to do now . . . Erase it."

"But it's just getting to the good part!" Cat protested.

"For a change, I agree with Lister." Rimmer said. "It should be erased.** _Now._**"

"Don't you want to see the end?" Holly asked.

"** _NO!!!_**" the crew shouted in unison.

"All right then."  
The tape cut off, in the midst of a chorus of "Who Let the Dogs Out?", and there was a crunching sound.  
"What's that?" asked Rimmer.

"I don't know," Lister said, reaching for a bazookoid, "but I don't like it, man."

"You said you wanted it gone," Holly said. "I guess it's really gone now."  
Lister shook his head. "I think Krissie had the right idea."  
"Oh, no!" Rimmer started backing away from him. "No one's shutting **me** off!"  
"No, that's not what I meant."

Rimmer, as usual, had no idea what he was talking about.

"C'mon," Lister said. "It's late, let's get to bed. We'll talk about it in the morning."

"Actually, I think we'd best talk about it now." said an unfamiliar voice. The Boyz from the Dwarf all turned as one to see a stranger standing in the doorway.  
Lister broached the obvious question: "Who the smeg are you?"

"Me? Why, I'm . . . Inspector Raymond Fowler, Gasforth PD, at your service, and the most peculiar thing happened to me this morning outside the station."

"Smeggin' 'ell!"  
  
Far away, on a hillside somewhere near Moria . . .

. . . the crew of the starship _Heart of Gold_ stared in utter disbelief at their surroundings.  
"Nice going, Zaphod!" Arthur Dent fumed at his reluctant shipmate, Zaphod Beeblebrox. "'Don't touch the dimensional body-swapper', I said. 'Leave it alone', I said. But would you listen to me?** _NOOOOOOOOOO! _**You had to go and prove what a genius you are! Now we're stuck in the middle of God knows where . . . ."  
"Chill out, Earthman." Zaphod urged him in his usual laid-back tone. "It's just a minor glitch, is all. Eddie'll have the whole thing sorted out in no time. You'll see."  
"More likely," droned a grim Marvin the Paranoid Android, "we'll be stuck here months, if not years."  
Ford Prefect cast an appreciative glance at a nearby grove of trees. "Well, if we did have to get stranded for a long time, we certainly couldn't have picked a prettier place to do it in." Noticing one familiar face was missing, he suddenly asked, "Has anyone seen Trillian?"  
"Not me." Arthur admitted. "What about you, Marvin?"  
"No, and I probably never will again." Marvin grumbled.  
"What about you, Zaphod?"  
"Not since that swirly light thingy dumped us here, Earthman." Zaphod said. "Maybe those guys can give us a clue."  
Arthur looked around in confusion. "What guys?"  
Then he saw the line of Ringwraiths coming over the next hill. There were only two words he could think of to say . . .  
  


**_"Oh, smeg . . . ."_**

  
  
  


THE END

  
  
  


To be continued in _THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE RED DWARF_

(Stay tuned for a bonus smegups episode!)  
  
Inspector Fowler belongs to Rowan Atkinson, Tiger Aspect Productions, and the BBC; all "Hitchhiker's Guide" characters belong to Ballantine Books, the BBC, and the estate of the late Douglas Adams. 


End file.
